Citation

Whitfield-Gabrieli S, Evins AE. Nat. Ment. Health 2023; 1(10): 695-696.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2023, Holtzbrinck Springer Nature Publishing Group)

DOI

10.1038/s44220-023-00122-z

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

The surging demand for adolescent mental health care has been declared a crisis by the US Surgeon General, UK and European health officials and pediatric health organizations. Demand for mental health services has broadly outstripped capacity, reducing access to current gold-standard treatments, which, although lifesaving for many, are only effective for a minority of those who use them.

Thus, scalable interventions -- ideally deployable within and outside clinical settings -- are needed to reduce suffering and improve functional outcomes for adolescents. Symptoms of anxiety and depression -- which frequently present as comorbidities with suicidal thoughts and behavior and/or problem substance use -- worsened by social isolation and trauma, are at the center of this crisis. Intensive social media use may also contribute to distress. In adolescents, it is often not known whether these non-specific, transdiagnostic symptoms will be self-limited or represent precursors to mood, psychotic, anxiety, trauma-related or substance-use disorders.

Language: en

Keywords

Learning and memory; Neuroscience