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Abstract
BackgroundPersistent health challenges are increasing throughout the world. It has been shown that adolescents with persistent health challenges are at greater risk of having mental health problems than their healthy peers. However, these studies are mainly cross-sectional, and little is known about the transition to adulthood. Thus, the aim of this study was to examine how mental health problems in adolescents and young adults with persistent health challenges vary during adolescence and in the transition to young adulthood.MethodsThe study used longitudinal and time-series data from the “Young in Norway” study. A sample of adolescents was prospectively followed from adolescence to young adulthood with measures at four different time points (n = 3,087; T1–T4): 2921 adolescents (12–19 years) participated at T1 and T2, while 2448 young adults participated at T3 and T4. Persistent health challenges, age, gender, mental health problems and parental socio-economic status were measured in the longitudinal survey. Regression models were applied to estimate associations between persistent health challenges (understood as having a chronic health condition or disability) and mental health problems during adolescence and young adulthood. Different models were tested for chronic health conditions and disability.ResultsAdolescents with disability had higher scores for depressive and anxiety symptoms, loneliness and self-concept instability, and lower scores for self-worth, appearance satisfaction, scholastic competence and social acceptance compared with adolescents without disability. In young adulthood, there were also significant associations between disability and most mental health problems. The longitudinal associations between chronic health conditions and mental health problems during adolescence and young adulthood showed that significant associations between chronic health conditions and mental health problems were only found during adolescence.ConclusionsThis longitudinal survey revealed that on average, adolescents with disability had more mental health problems than those with a chronic health condition. In addition, the problems followed into adulthood for adolescents with disability. Thus, disability seems to be a much higher risk factor for developing and maintaining mental health problems than having a chronic health condition. These findings need to be followed up in further studies.
Highlights
IntroductionIt has been shown that adolescents with persistent health challenges are at greater risk of having mental health problems than their healthy peers
Persistent health challenges are increasing throughout the world
Except for alcohol intoxication, significant associations were found between all mental health problems and disability during adolescence (P < 0.05); adolescents with disability had higher scores for depressive and anxiety symptoms, loneliness and self-concept instability, and lower scores for selfworth, appearance satisfaction, scholastic competence and social acceptance compared with adolescents without disability
Summary
It has been shown that adolescents with persistent health challenges are at greater risk of having mental health problems than their healthy peers. These studies are mainly cross-sectional, and little is known about the transition to adulthood. The incidence and prevalence of persistent health challenges are increasing throughout the world, and chronic conditions and disability are emerging as major health problems in society [1]. A person’s functional ability and level of disability will, depending on how the condition is perceived and coped with, presumably have an impact on the mental health and quality of life of that person
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