When youth know about their mental disorder before caregivers do: Youth‐identified duration of untreated mental disorder (YIDUMD)

Abstract

Purpose: To report on young people's accounts of retrospective subjective knowledge of early distress.

Method: Semi‐structured interviews were conducted with 49 youth, 22 female and 27 male, aged 16–26 living with mental health problems in Canada, USA, and Australia.

Results: Some youth self‐reported being “aware” of mental problems as early as 4 and 5 years of age; however, as a group, youth were not officially diagnosed until between 11 and 24 years of age. Overall, the average youth‐identified duration of untreated mental disorder (YIDUMD) was 4.73 years, with 5 youth being diagnosed and treated at less than one year from self‐identified onset.

Conclusion: The complexities of childhood make the accuracy of diagnosing mental disorders at early ages difficult. This research suggests that some youth may have the ability to self‐identify mental disturbances at very early ages. Therefore, further research is needed to explore developing screening and assessment tools facilitating the systematic inclusion of child self‐report information in clinical interviews.

Keywords:

• early intervention
• first episode
• primary care
• prevention
• treatment guidelines
• early childhood educators