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Citation |
Price M, Hides L, Cockshaw W, Staneva AA, Stoyanov SR. Behav. Sci. (Basel) 2016; 6(2): e6020009. |
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Affiliation |
Young and Well Cooperative Research Centre, Melbourne 3067, Australia. stoyan.stoyanov@qut.edu.au. |
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Copyright |
(Copyright © 2016, MDPI: Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute) |
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DOI |
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PMID |
27164149 |
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Abstract |
Over 50% of young people have dated by age 15. While romantic relationship concerns are a major reason for adolescent help-seeking from counselling services, we have a limited understanding of what types of relationship issues are most strongly related to mental health issues and suicide risk. This paper used records of 4019 counselling sessions with adolescents (10-18 years) seeking help from a national youth counselling service for a romantic relationship concern to: (i) explore what types and stage (pre, during, post) of romantic concerns adolescents seek help for; (ii) how they are associated with mental health problems, self-harm and suicide risk; and (iii) whether these associations differ by age and gender. In line with developmental-contextual theory, results suggest that concerns about the initiation of relationships are common in early adolescence, while concerns about maintaining and repairing relationships increase with age. Relationship breakups were the most common concern for both male and female adolescents and for all age groups (early, mid, late adolescence). Data relating to a range of mental health issues were available for approximately half of the sample. Post-relationship concerns (including breakups) were also more likely than pre- or during-relationship concerns to be associated with concurrent mental health issues (36.8%), self-harm (22.6%) and suicide (9.9%). Language: en |