Articlehybrid2018

Prevalence of emotional and behavioral problems and subthreshold psychiatric disorders in Austrian adolescents and the need for prevention

Julia Philipp · Michael D. Zeiler · Karin Waldherr · Stefanie Truttmann · Andreas F. K. Karwautz · Gudrun Wagner

58 citations0/0 files storedSocial Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology

No readable copy stored yet — this record is metadata only.

No open-access location is known for this record yet.

Literature note Cite in a project Citation map

Child and Adolescent Psychosocial and Emotional Development Mental Health Treatment and Access Psychology and Mental Health

Abstract

PURPOSE: Epidemiological data are crucial to plan adequate prevention strategies. Thus, this study aims at obtaining the prevalence of mental health problems (MHP) and subthreshold psychiatric disorders based on a representative sample of Austrian adolescents. METHODS: Adolescents aged 10-18 were recruited from Austrian schools. Emotional and behavioral problems were determined using the Youth Self-Report (YSR); the point prevalence of subthreshold psychiatric disorders was assessed using structured diagnostic interviews. Sociodemographic variables including socioeconomic background, migration status, family structure, and place of residence were obtained. In addition, a non-school sample (unemployed adolescents, and child and adolescent psychiatry patients) was included to enhance representativeness and generalizability. RESULTS: 3446 students, 37 unemployed adolescents, and 125 child and adolescent psychiatric patients provided analyzable YSR data sets. In the school sample, 16.5% scored in the clinically relevant range, while internalizing problems were more prevalent (17.8%) than externalizing problems (7.4%). These prevalences increased by 0.7-2.0% when the non-school sample was taken into account. A low socioeconomic status (SES) and living in single parent families were associated with higher problem scores. Regarding the interviewed sample (377 students and 407 parents), subthreshold psychiatric disorders were observed in 12.7% of students. 92.5% of them have not yet received any kind of help. CONCLUSIONS: A significant proportion of Austrian adolescents are at risk for MHP. A non-responder analysis indicates that the observed prevalence may be even underestimated. These findings emphasize the urgent need for targeted prevention, especially for reducing anxiety and depressive symptoms and for adolescents in disadvantaged families.

Paper brief

Loading…

Cite this work

Citation unavailable for this work.

BibTeX RIS CSL-JSON

No public copy is stored for this record, so only the metadata is cited.

Citations in this library

Citation map →

Stored only when both papers are in the corpus — 58 citations exist upstream.

References

2010Lifetime Prevalence of Mental Disorders in U.S. Adolescents: Results from the National Comorbidity Survey Replication–Adolescent Supplement (NCS-A)2015Annual Research Review: A meta‐analysis of the worldwide prevalence of mental disorders in children and adolescents 1991Manual for the Youth Self-Report and 1991 profile 2007Mental health of young people: a global public-health challenge 2011Child and adolescent mental health worldwide: evidence for action 1999The SCOFF questionnaire: assessment of a new screening tool for eating disorders 2009Epidemiology of mental disorders in children and adolescents 2011Prevalence, Persistence, and Sociodemographic Correlates of DSM-IV Disorders in the National Comorbidity Survey Replication Adolescent Supplement

Cited by

2020The anonymously adopted child: Impact of age and parental psychopathology on adoptees’ mental health

Explore the map →

Papers that cite the same references — the relational fallback while embeddings are still backfilling.

Imported from OpenAlex (CC0) — nothing here is generated.