From a gunman in a crowded Colorado movie theatre to a classroom killer in Connecticut to Boston marathon bombers, the nation has been shocked and grieved by the acts of young men with apparent mental illness. The question on the minds of many has been “How could these young men never be recognized as needing help?” followed by “If people knew they were troubled, why didn’t they get the help they needed?”
A recent study conducted through Duke University found that far too few adolescents get the mental health care that they actually need. The study was actually a formal review of the National Comorbidity Survey Adolescent Supplement, a representative national sample involving personal interviews of 10,148 13- to 17-year-olds.
The researchers found that better than 50 percent of adolescents with mental illness get no help for their condition, and those that do seek help rarely get it from a mental health professional. Instead, many received care from their primary care doctor, the school counselor or their probation officer.
In looking over the data researchers learned that some mental conditions got more professional attention than others. Adolescents with behavioral disorders such as oppositional defiant disorder, conduct disorder or attention deficit hyperactivity disorder tended to get the most specialized care. Young people with these disorders were professionally treated 70 percent of the time.
At the opposite end of the spectrum were racial and other inequities. Black adolescents tended to get mental health treatment less often than white teens, and adolescents suffering with an anxiety disorder or phobia were treated less often than those with any other mental health condition.
Duke researchers commenting on their study said that part of the problem is that Americans still fail to take mental illness as seriously as they should. People tend to downplay these illnesses until something terrible happens. The study indicates that there needs to be a greater availability of services to help young people trying to deal with mental health problems.
There are excellent mental health care treatment facilities which specialize in adolescent care, but not enough teens have the chance to take advantage of the services offered. Changes in attitude toward mental health care are needed, but so are changes in how insurance companies support the care that is already out there.
