Mental Health Issues Among Children And Adolescents: Causes, Effects And Management

Aims and Objectives of The Research Project

This report researches on the issues that affect children and adolescents suffering from mental health. Mental health involves emotional, psychological and social well being of an individual. People suffering from mental health face many challenges in their day to day life and it is therefore important to understand how to address issues surrounding mental health among children. According to the World Health Organization(WHO), between 10 to 20% of children and adolescents experience mental disorders. More than half of these mental illnesses begin at age 14. Neuropsychiatric conditions are the leading cause of mental disorders among children and young people. If these conditions are not treated early, they greatly affect the development of a child and their potential to live fulfilling lives. It is therefore important to understand how mental health issues among children and adolescents can be addressed to help them live normal and fulfilling lives. This research project identifies the causes of mental disorders among children. The report also discusses how mental health disorder affects the lives of the children and how the mental health issues can be addressed.

The following are the aims and objectives of this research project:

• To understand the causes of mental health disorders among children and adolescents.
• To establish how poor mental health affects the well being and development of children and adolescents.
• To establish ways through which mental health problems among children and adolescents can be prevented.
• To identify ways through which mental health problems can be resolved and managed to minimize their effect on the life of an individual.

According to WHO, 10 to 20% of children between the age of 5 and 18 suffer from mental disorders. In Australia, approximately 9 % of children suffer from mental health issues. Researchers in the past have tried to understand the prevalence of mental disorders in children and adolescents in Australia. One of the tools used in determining this is the Diagnostic Interview Schedule for Children Version IV(DISC-IV). This is a validated tool used in identifying mental disorders in children and adolescents as contained in the Statistical Manual for Mental Disorders Version IV(DSM-IV). The models used in DISC include; Anxiety disorders, major depressive disorder, attention-deficit disorder, and conduct disorder. 

According to the research conducted by Hazen et al. (2011), about one in every eleven children experience mental health issues. This, therefore, means that approximately 580,000 children and adolescents in Australia suffer related mental disorders. The research indicated that the prevalence of mental disorders varied between male and females. 16.5% of males had mental disorders while 11.5% of females suffered related mental disorders.

Research also indicates that anxiety-related disorder is the main cause of mental disorder among children and adolescents in Australia. More than 60 % of children and adolescents who suffer related mental disorders are as a result anxiety disorder. It is largely assumed that children are carefree and do not have issues that stress them. However, research indicates that children above the age of 11 years suffer anxiety as a result of many factors. Some of the factors that lead to anxiety among children include; separation from parents, fear of injury and death among older children, fear of darkness, monster and insects among children of between 3 and four years. The second leading cause of mental disorders among adolescents is a stress-related disorder. They include acute stress disorder and posttraumatic stress disorder(PTSD). Children are affected mentally when exposed to traumatic events such as sexual assault, car accidents, and excessive punishment and beating by those close to them. 

Prevalence of Mental Disorders Among Children in Australia

According to Dogra & Leighton, (2009), children suffering from mental health disorders experience many problems and challenges in their life. He explains that poor mental health of children affects their learning.and development.Children between the age of 8 and 15 years undergo a lot of development during this stage. A child with poor mental health may not grow normally both physically and psychologically. The mental disorder affects their ability to feed and grow in mind. This stage is also very important in learning at school, and hence education children suffering from mental health disorder may be affected. Mental health disorder also affects the social life of children and adolescent. Research indicates that children with mental health issues are shy and they don’t normally interact with others in their age brackets. They also find it difficult to enter into a relationship with the people of the other gender. Dogra & Leighton, (2009)indicates that adolescents suffering from mental disorders fall into depression and may get suicidal.

To address mental disorders among children and adolescents, parents need to take first responsibility to ensure that they do not expose their children to events and conditions that may affect the mental health of their children (Evans, Annenberg Public Policy Center& Annenberg Foundation Trust at Sunnylands, 2017). Parents should stay close to their children to ensure that they detect any emotional or behavioral changes that may indicate mental health problems among the children. Teachers at school should also play a huge role in ensuring good mental health for adolescents who spend most of their time at school.

There is a huge number of children and adolescents in Australia suffering from Mental disorders. Most of these children and adolescents do not receive the help and care that they require to overcome the mental disorder they suffer. This may be because their parents, guardians, and teachers are not aware of what the children are suffering from(“Treating mental health disorders in children and adolescents”, 2015). Children and adolescents suffer for many years, and this affects both their social life, development, and education (Giulio & Gau, 2016). By conducting this research, it will be possible to identify the prevalence of mental health disorder among children and adolescents. This will, therefore, help parents and society, in general, to reduce cases of mental health disorders among children and adolescents since they will understand the causes of the disorder(Johnson, Lawrence, Perales, Baxter & Zubrick, 2017). The study will also help to identify ways in which mental health disorders can be prevented among adolescents as well as help those already suffering from the disorder to seek treatment. 

Causes of Mental Disorders Among Children and Adolescents in Australia

The study aims at collecting information from 250 families across Australia who has children of between 3-14 years. Another sample of families with children aged between 15-18 years was taken to help understand mental health among adolescents. The participants of the study will be chosen randomly from all regions in Australia. The research will involve people living in the poor and rich neighborhood. This will help to understand how social status and economic well-being of a family may affect the mental health of children and adolescents (Abela & Hankin, 2008). The population of male and female children selected for the study will be the same to ensure accurate information is derived from the study.

The study will be conducted using a qualitative research method. This method will be used because of the nature of the data required for this study (Brown, 2008). The information is descriptive because it seeks to explain emotions and feelings which are not measurable numerically. Information collected in this study. Parents of children within the age bracket indicated will be asked questions aims towards answering the research questions. The research will be conducted through interviews with the identified sample population. 

The study will use non-experimental research framework. Data for this study will be conducted through interviews. Interview questions will be designed, and participants will be interviewed at least three times over a period. Interviews will help to capture the feelings and emotions of families who have children suffering from mental disorders. Interviews will also offer the participants an opportunity to explain their experiences and thoughts in detail. Random sampling method will be used to determine the sample population to be used for this study (Sadock& Sadock,  2008). The ethical considerations that are important during this study are ensuring that the questions asked to the respondents are not too personal that they may affect the families of the children who have a mental disorder.

The study uses past literature to estimate how many children and adolescents suffer mental health disorders. The study also seeks to find mental health prevalence for children between age 3- 14 and adolescents aged between 15-18 years. This research is wide in scope since it also aims at establishing the causes of mental disorder among children and adolescents.

Some of the challenges that are expected during the study are that it will be difficult to get first-hand information about how mental disorder affects children since most of them cannot express themselves (McNally, 2011). The sample size is very small compared to the entire population, and hence the results of the study may not be very accurate. 

References

Abela, J. R. Z., & Hankin, B. L. (2008). Handbook of depression in children and adolescents. New York: Guilford Press.

Brown, R. T. (2008). Childhood mental health disorders: Evidence base and contextual factors for psychosocial, psychopharmacological, and combined interventions. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.

Evans, D. L., Annenberg Public Policy Center, & Annenberg Foundation Trust at Sunnylands, (2017). Treating and preventing adolescent mental health disorders: What we know and what we don’t know: a research agenda for improving the mental health of our youth.

Dogra, N., & Leighton, S. (2009). Nursing in child and adolescent mental health. Maidenhead: Open University Press.

Giulio, A., & Gau, S. S.-F. (2016). Positive mental health, fighting stigma and promoting resiliency for children and adolescents. Amsterdam [Netherlands: Academic Press.

Goldstein, M. L., & Morewitz, S. (2011). Chronic Disorders in Children and Adolescents [recurso electrónico]. Estados Unidos: Springer New York.

Hazen, E. P., Goldstein, M. A., & Goldstein, M. C. (2011). Mental health disorders in adolescents: A guide for parents, teachers, and professionals. New Brunswick, N.J: Rutgers University Press.

Johnson, S., Lawrence, D., Perales, F., Baxter, J., & Zubrick, S. (2017). Prevalence of Mental Disorders Among Children and Adolescents of Parents with Self-Reported Mental Health Problems. Community Mental Health Journal, 54(6), 884-897. doi: 10.1007/s10597-017-0217-5

McNally, R. J. (2011). What is mental illness?. Cambridge, Mass: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press

National Collaborating Centre for Mental Health (Great Britain), Social Care Institute for Excellence (Great Britain), & National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (Great Britain),. (2013). Antisocial behavior and conduct disorders in children and young people: Recognition, intervention, and management.

Sadock, B. J., & Sadock, V. A. (2008). Kaplan and Sadock’s concise textbook of clinical psychiatry. Philadelphia: Lippincott-Raven.

Treating mental health disorders in children and adolescents. (2015). The Pharmaceutical Journal. doi: 10.1211/pj.2015.20067142