Depression and self-harm taking toll on teenagers, says new study

DEPRESSION AND self-harm are on the rise among Britain’s teenagers as young people struggle with their mental health, according to a large-scale study.

Youngsters are also far more likely to suffer poor body image compared with a decade ago, while parents are more likely to say their teenagers have friendship issues and emotional problems.

The study of more than 16,000 14-year-olds was published after the Government vowed to crack down on harmful content on social media sites following the death of 14-year-old Molly Russell, who took her own life in 2017.

Her father has said Instagram helped to kill his daughter after he found she had been viewing graphic images of self-harm on the site. Instagram has since said it will remove all graphic images of self-harm, with other social media sites taking similar action.

The new study, led by University College London’s Centre for Longitudinal Studies, examined data for two sets of children.

The first set of 5,627 were born in 1991/92, while the second set of 11,318 were born a decade later in 2000/02. Both groups are being followed long-term as part of major studies and the data was statistically adjusted to ensure the groups could be compared at 14.

The study found that 14-yearolds nowadays are far more likely to report depression, rising from nine per cent in 2005 to 14.8 per cent in 2015. Self-harm increased from 11.8 per cent of youngsters born in the early 1990s to 14.4 per cent of those born at the turn of the millennium.

Dr Suzanne Gage, co-author of the study, said: “It has seemed for a while that mental health difficulties in young people are on the rise, but this study really highlights the scale at which this increase might be occurring.

“The next step is to understand why these increases are occurring, so young people can be supported better.”

Dr Bernadka Dubicka, of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, said: “This study is a wake-up call to the different pressures today’s teenagers are under and the impact these may have on their mental health.”

Parents were around twice as likely to report their youngster having emotional difficulties, behavioural problems and issues with peer groups than those whose children were born in the early 1990s.

Teenagers nowadays were more likely to skip the recommended eight hours of sleep, with 12 per cent not having eight hours compared with six per cent previously.

They were also more likely to be obese and a greater proportion also saw themselves as overweight, up from 27 per cent to 33 per cent.

But some behaviours associated with poor mental health fell across the decade, with fewer 14 year-olds smoking cigarettes or cannabis, drinking alcohol, getting involved in anti-social behaviour or having sex.

Rates of 14 year-olds punching or kicking someone on purpose fell from 40 per cent to 28 per cent, and teenagers committing acts of vandalism have decreased from six per cent to two per cent.

More than 52 per cent of the those born in the early 1990s had tried alcohol by 14, compared with less than 44 per cent of those born a decade later.

NHS data for England shows there were 3,590 hospital admissions for self-harm among those aged 13 to 17 in 2017/18, up from 1,181 in 2007/08.

This is a wake-up call to understand pressures for teenagers.

Dr Bernadka Dubicka, of the Royal College of Psychiatrists.