A subject not often talked about among young people today is that of mental health problems. This is surprising, as suicide rates have been increasing the most amongst young people in recent years. Research carried out by Ark Northern Ireland has brought the issue of increased mental health problems among young people to the forefront.
Within this article they have used a piece of research carried out by ‘Young Life and Times survey’, which included a number of questions relating to the mental health of Northern Irish 16 year olds. This research looked at certain factors that can influence a teenager to have increased stress levels. For example does living in the town or country, your religious beliefs, academic pressure or whether or not you were bullied at school affect your mental health?
It was found that adolescents who live in cities or towns are not necessarily more likely to be stressed than those living in the countryside, which conflicts with common belief. Considering that bullying has been a major news story in the media recently, it is suprising to find that in the survey only 13% of the young people said they had been bullied at one time or another. Of course it is important to remember that these were only the ones who actually admitted to being bullied, as a lot of teenagers never do admit there may be a problem. It is shocking to think that Previous to this survey, no other research had looked the mental health within this group and 16-24 years are often a very vulnerable group within society.
The Survey found that psychological distress was higher among females (30%) than in males (16%), 47% of males said they rarely or never got stressed at all, while only 25% of females felt the same way.
Check out the entire piece of research at http://www.ark.ac.uk/publications/updates/update33.pdf
