Children, youth and mental disorders

Though Canada prides itself on its universal health care system, mental health services for children and youth are not keeping pace with the high rates of depression, suicide, eating disorders, schizophrenia and other mental illnesses in young Canadians.

A 2002 analysis of mental illness prevalence studies concluded that 15% or around 150,000 children and youth in BC, “experience mental disorders causing significant distress and impairing their functioning at home, at school, with peers, or in the community”—anxiety, conduct, attention-deficit, and depressive disorders being the most common.

Depression and suicide are among the most talked about youth mental health issues. A quarter of a million young people had symptoms of major depression in the past year; about the same number thought about suicide. In a 2003 school-based survey in BC, about 8% of 12-19 year-olds said they were seriously emotionally distressed in the past month such that they had felt so sad, discouraged or hopeless that they wondered if anything was worthwhile. Even more troubling is that about 16% of young people admit having considered suicide in the past year, and 7% admit having attempted it. Suicide risk drops the more connected the youth is to their family, friends and school.

Despite the number of children with depression, eating disorders and other mental disorders, many of these illnesses are left untreated in children, according to mental health advocates. For example, while an estimated 15% of BC’s children and youth are needing help and would benefit from treatment, only 1%, or around 11,000 children and youth, were connected to the mental health system in BC in 2002, according to the Ministry of Child and Family Development.

One reason for the lack of diagnosis and treatment is that people do not expect mental illness to affect someone so young. Another is that identifying mental illness in children can be challenging, partly because young people change so much as they grow.

Parents may have difficulty distinguishing between normal phases in development and an underlying mental illness. For example, frequent outbursts of anger or tears may result from hormonal changes in puberty or they may be symptoms of depression, a drug and/or alcohol addiction or an eating disorder.

The pressures of school and growing up can be very difficult for some children to cope with successfully. Parents who look at situations through adult eyes may not realize the depth of their children’s concerns—and even if they do, other factors such as culture and gender moderate whether a young person would even talk to their parents in the first place. In one BC study, Chinese youth, for instance, were twice as reluctant to consider parents a preferred source of help for depression problems (17%) compared to non-Chinese youth (33%). In both cases, girls were the ones more likely to choose friends over parents.

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