Adolescents with mental health problems in school: towards better help-seeking and support

Abstract

Your mental health during adolescence can have important consequences for your school functioning since adolescents with mental health problems have a higher chance of school dropout. To prevent school dropout, it is important that adolescents with mental health problems seek help in time and get appropriate support, either within school or through psychosocial care. However, asking for help and accepting help is often a problem for adolescents. Thus, increasing our insight into help-seeking behaviour of adolescents is important, not only for their current mental health, but also for their mental health in adulthood. Therefore, we investigated the help-seeking behaviour of adolescents, and the use of support in school by adolescents and the factors that influence it. We also investigated the feasibility of the Supported Education method, a support method that aims to support adolescents with mental health problems to remain in school. Finally, we also looked at treatment outcomes of psychosocial care for adolescents and the influence of health literacy skills. In general, we can conclude that mental health prevention and support for adolescents is essential and that there are many opportunities to address this in the school environment. In addition, it is important to stimulate knowledge and skills of adolescents on mental health, for example to help them seek help and talk about mental health, as well as to create a mental health positive climate in schools. This needs a school wide approach, in which school management, education professionals and adolescents are involved.