The mental health of young people continues to deteriorate rapidly, seriously threatening their future and, by extension, society. In the last two years, the number of young people who report having had mental health problems has continued to increase. Thus, if in 2021 56.4% of young people recognized it, in 2023 the percentage already reaches 59.3%. This percentage stood at 28.4% in 2017. More data: For the first time, there are more young people who have thought about suicide at least once (48.9%) than those who have never thought about it (47%). and one in three young people claims to have taken psychotropic drugs and half of them have done so without a prescription.
These are some data from the “Youth Barometer 2023. Health and Wellbeing” of the Mutua Madrileña Foundation and Fad Juventud, carried out after interviewing more than 1,500 young Spanish people between 15 and 29 years old and made public this morning, one day before the world day of mental health.
According to this work, the data are not positive at all. Only 36.6% of young people claim to have not experienced any mental health problems in the last year compared to 17.4% who experience mental health problems with significant frequency (continuously or frequently). The gender gap exists in mental health. There are more men than women who have never experienced disorders (42.4%, compared to 30.9% of women).
The results of the Barometer also show the increase in suicidal ideation. 1 in 4 young people has ever experienced suicidal ideation (23.8%), 11.3% think about suicide with some frequency and 13.8% experience suicidal ideation very frequently or continuously.
The data, as the report points out, are not good at all, but they are even worse when they are crossed with socioeconomic variables and we corroborate that vulnerability to mental illnesses and disorders is related to the material deficiencies that one has, and also the possibilities of reducing that vulnerability. Among those who claim to suffer from severe material deprivation, there are 27.1% who declare that they suffer from disorders very frequently or continuously, dropping to 13.1% of those who do not suffer from material deprivation.
Around 4 out of every 10 young people claim to have very frequently experienced symptoms associated with a lack of mental health, the most frequent being tiredness or lack of energy (46.2%), feeling of being sad or down (44, 2%), problems concentrating (44.9%), fear of the future (42.7%), little interest in doing things (40.7%), problems sleeping (39.2%) or attacks of anxiety (37.8%).
Of the total number of boys and girls who declare having suffered psychological, psychiatric or mental health problems in the last twelve months (59.3% of the total young population), 2 out of 3 (62.5%) have asked for help professional, compared to 51% in 2021.
In 2023, as in the previous cut of the Barometer (2021), the main reason why young people say they do not seek professional help to alleviate their mental health problems is economic issues (37.8%) .
Approximately half of young people mention at least one type of diagnosed disorder. The most widespread are depression (17.7%) and anxiety (15.9%). Other disorders less mentioned, but with worrying proportions, are ADHD (7.6%), eating disorders (6.1%), OCD (4.8%), those due to post-traumatic stress (4.6%). , personality disorders (4%), those due to non-substance addictions (4%) and those derived from substance addictions (2.5%).
The percentages of young women diagnosed with depression or anxiety are much higher than that of young men (22.6% of them in the case of depression and 21.8% in the case of anxiety, while among them it is 13.1% for depression and 9.6% due to anxiety). Those with severe material deficiency also predominate (22.9% in cases of depression and 20.4% in cases of anxiety).
In 2023, a third of young people take psychotropic drugs and, of them, more than half have done so without a prescription (17.8% compared to 13.9% who have done so with a prescription).
