Are young adult's mental health needs met at the local health care centre?

Young adult’s mental health has since the beginning of 1990 become dramatically worse, especially for the women, according to different investigations that have been made in the Stockholm County, Sweden. There are also unfulfilled needs in this group regarding help with mental health issues from the health care sector, which can be said to be a public health problem. The target group in this study is young adults between 18-28 years that has visited one out of four selected health care centres (HCC) for various health problems, physical as well as mental. A questionnaire, with both closed and open questions, was given out from the reception at the HCC. 246 out of the 600 questionnaires was answered and sent in. Two thirds of those were answered by women. The aim with this study was to find out if young adults that seek help for physical problems also describe that they have mental health problems and if these needs are met at the HCC. The results show that although the majority (89%) where seeking help for physical problems, 81% thought that the causes to why they didn’t feel well at present (mentally or physically) depended entirely or partly on psychological/life related reasons. Also, the women as well as the men reported that their mental health was slightly worse than their physical health although they most often sought help for physical health problems. There seem, accordingly, to be a discrepancy between how the young adults describe their mental health in the questionnaire and what health problems they are seeking help for at the local HCC. Possible reasons to why that is so will be discussed in more detail during the presentation as well as the question about if the young people’s mental health needs could said to be met at the HCC.