{"id":7925,"date":"2016-07-22T11:44:55","date_gmt":"2016-07-22T15:44:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/campusmentalhealth.ca\/?p=7925"},"modified":"2016-07-22T11:44:55","modified_gmt":"2016-07-22T15:44:55","slug":"number-ontario-teens-psychological-distress-rising-alarming-rate-study","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/campusmentalhealth.ca\/news\/number-ontario-teens-psychological-distress-rising-alarming-rate-study\/","title":{"rendered":"Number of Ontario teens with psychological distress rising at alarming rate: study"},"content":{"rendered":"

A lot of Ontario teens are feeling anxious and depressed, and their numbers have grown. That\u2019s the take-away from a large-scale study<\/a> that\u2019s been tracking students in the province for the last 20 years. One-third of the students in the survey were found to have moderate to severe symptoms of psychological distress \u2013 an alarming leap from two years earlier, when only one-quarter of students met the same threshold.<\/p>\n

Now comes the hard part: figuring out why high schoolers are increasingly describing their lives as overwhelming, anxiety-inducing and stress-filled, and how to help them early because the higher up the grades you go, the worse the situation tends to get. Grade 12s, for instance, were four times more likely than Grade 7s to report high levels of stress, and more than twice as likely to rate their mental health as fair or poor. Older teens were significantly more likely to think about suicide. Yet they were no more likely than younger teens to seek help.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s a worrisome trend, especially for teenagers about to make the leap out of the relatively safe confines of high school and into adulthood.<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cMost of us consider the adolescent years the peak of your life \u2013 your life is ahead of you, the world is your oyster \u2013 but that seems not to be the case,\u201d said Robert Mann, a head researcher on the survey, conducted by the Toronto-based Centre for Addiction and Mental Health.<\/p>\n

\u201cGiven that you are shaping the rest of your life in adolescence, it\u2019s important for us to understand what the challenges teens are dealing with.\u201d<\/p>\n

The study was based on responses by 10,426 students from Grades 7 to 12 in 220 schools across the province. Researchers scored psychological stress, based on a well-known assessment, by asking students how often in the last four weeks they had experienced certain symptoms: feeling nervous, or hopeless, or worthless, or so depressed that nothing could cheer them up. Overall, 14 per cent of students met the bar for \u201cserious\u201d psychological distress \u2013 an increase from 10 per cent in 2013.<\/p>\n

Gender adds another layer to the story: On most measures, girls were significantly more likely to report problems than boys. And while more students are reporting stress and other mental-health issues, over all, the percentage who reported thinking seriously about suicide is roughly the same, at 12 per cent, as in 2001.<\/p>\n

The study presents data but doesn\u2019t draw conclusions. For instance, Grade 12 students were three times less likely to be getting a full night\u2019s sleep and less likely to be exercising \u2013 factors that affect mental health. They spent significantly more time sitting in front of a screen and more time on social media \u2013 behaviour that has also been linked to mental-health issues. By Grade 12, nearly 23 per cent of students were spending five or more hours on social media, more than twice as much as in Grade 7. (By comparison, the percentage of students who reported being bullied, either online and in person, held steady across grades. Nearly one-quarter said they had been bullied in school since September; roughly one-fifth said they had experienced cyberbullying in the last year.)<\/p>\n

A recent project <\/a>by The Globe and Mail that explored the attitudes and habits of Grade 12 students in Canada found that older teens are also worried about student debt and the job market, and feeling overwhelmed by the demands of social media, and even a diminished sense of safety in a world plagued by bombings, shootings and attacks on innocent civilians. \u201cIf we think about what life is like, it seems fairly depressing,\u201d Dr. Mann says, and certainly, \u201cnastier than the one their parents grew up with.\u201d<\/p>\n

Many of these stress-inducing factors are beyond the control of any mental-health strategy. But early intervention and school-based education have worked before, Dr. Mann points out. For instance, he says, substance abuse among teenagers has fallen significantly over the two decades \u2013 a result he partly attributes to raised awareness about the risks of drugs and alcohol.<\/p>\n

Stan Kutcher, a Dalhousie University psychiatrist who specializes in adolescent mental health, fervently agrees that teenagers need to improve their mental-health literacy. He suggests that what\u2019s really rising is the percentage of students struggling to manage the stress of everyday life. \u201cWe are creating generations of kids who think life has to be stress-free,\u201d he argues. \u201cWe have not been teaching them how to solve the problems causing the stress.\u201d<\/p>\n

Life, social media, poor coping skills or clinical mental illness \u2013 whatever is going on, when so many teenagers feel miserable, Dr. Mann says, \u201cthat needs attention.\u201d This is not a question of whether the kids are all right. Many are struggling \u2013 and, in this survey, they have told us so.<\/p>\n

Retrieved from The Globe and Mai<\/a>l, and written by Erin Anderssen.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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