Recently the NSPCC revealed that it had counselled 11,706 young people for anxiety in 2015-2016 via its Childline telephone counselling services—a 35% rise from the previous year. Most shockingly, a child in distress telephones Childline every thirty minutes to talk about feelings of suicide.

Fast forward 10 to 15 years and the state of adolescent mental health problems has reached epidemic proportions. Almost 300,000 young people in Britain now have a diagnosed anxiety disorder.

The first academic studies investigating the growing problem of childhood and adolescent mental health problems date back to the beginning of the millennium and laid bare a worrying trend. At the time a number of potential causes that might be driving this phenomenon were put forward, but none managed to fully explain the observations. Fast forward 10 to 15 years and the state of adolescent mental health problems has reached epidemic proportions. Almost 300,000 young people in Britain now have a diagnosed anxiety disorder…

See Dr Stadler’s blog on the BMJ website here

Dr Collette Isabel Stadler is an Academic Clinical fellow at the Primary Care Unit and a GP in Cambridge.

 

Image: Dr Jon Ferdinand, Primary Care Unit