Abstract
Social relationships among adolescents with mental disorders are demanding. Adolescents with depressive symptoms may have few relationships and have difficulties sharing their problems. Internet may offer reliable and easy to use tool to collect real-time information from adolescents. The aim of this study is to explore how adolescents describe their social relationships with an electronic diary. Mixed methods were used to obtain a broad picture of adolescents’ social relationships with the data gathered from network maps and reflective texts written in an electronic diary. Adolescents who visited an outpatient clinic and used an intervention (N=70) designed for adolescents with signs of depression were invited to use the electronic diary; 29 did so. The quantitative data gathered in the electronic diary were summarized with descriptive statistics, and the qualitative data were categorized using a thematic analysis with an inductive approach. We found that social relationships among adolescents with signs of depression can vary greatly in regards to the number of existing relationships (from lacking to 21) and the quality of the relationships (from trustful to difficult). However, the relationships may change, and the adolescents are also willing to build up their social relationships. Professionals need to be aware of the diversity of adolescents’ social relationships and their need for personalized support.
Acknowledgments
This work was supported by the grants of Professor Maritta Välimäki: the Academy of Finland under Grant (8214245), the Hospital District of Southwest Finland under Grant (13893), The Paulo Foundation, the Finnish Cultural Foundation, the Yrjö Jahnsson Foundation under Grant (5920), Professor Pool and the University of Turku.
Author contributions
KA contributed to the design of the study, data analysis and writing the manuscript. MA contributed to the conception of the study, design of the study, data collection, data analysis, and writing the manuscript. MK contributed to the data collection and writing the manuscript. MV contributed to planning and organizing the Depis.Net RCT study, the conception of the study, writing the manuscript and supervised the study.
Disclosure
The authors report no conflicts of interest in this work.