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Do adolescents know where to find help for mental health problems? A brief report
1Research and Evaluation Unit, Women's and Children's Hospital, North Adelaide, Australia.
Objective:
Few previous studies have investigated adolescents' knowledge of the services available to provide help with mental health problems. This is an important omission as knowledge about the availability of mental health services may significantly influence the extent to which adolescents with mental health problems receive appropriate help for their difficulties. The purpose of this study was to investigate knowledge of mental health services among socio-economically disadvantaged adolescents.
Methodology:
Students attending the participating high school completed a questionnaire describing mental health services in South Australia.
Results:
The results suggest that the adolescents had little knowledge of mental health services and they primarily discussed their problems with other family members or friends. The results also suggest that the adolescents prefer to obtain information about mental health problems from education programmes in schools or on television.
Conclusions:
There is a need to make adolescents and their families more aware of the services available to provide help for mental health problems.