About 23% of young people in England live with physical long-term health conditions which tends to affect their mental health. Staff writer Alia Elanani discusses a recent study into this.
A recent paper exploring Drop-In Mental Health Services for Children With Long-Term Conditions, published by King’s researchers states that around 50% of people with long-term health conditions meet the criteria for at least one mental health disorder. This contrasts about 16% of the general population.
“I’m becoming a better me,” said a 12 year, after participating in the study.
Generally, mental health services do not run in parallel to physical health services and it can be difficult to connect the two. This makes it difficult for families to navigate care for both.
People with long term illness, for example epilepsy or inflammatory bowel syndrome (IBS), have a higher probability of struggling with mental health. They also report more loneliness, poor social life and a lower quality of life.
Parents and siblings of those affected face more stress because mental health support however is not always available, especially for families from non-White backgrounds.
This highlights barriers due to structural inequalities and discrimination.
Access to mental health services is clearly flawed and it should be made easier and fairer, so it can reach those who need it, regardless of social positioning.
King’s researchers state that families prefer when these support services are in places they can easily reach, places “they regularly frequent”.
To attempt to tackle this issue, King’s researchers tested mental health drop-in service, in six different children’s healthcare settings. This was called the Lucy Project.
Researchers then collected data to see how well these drop-in services work; how accessible they are to families and how much families accepted them or used them. The project was first piloted at a specialist hospital, then expanded to six NHS sites around England.
Data from 120 families across different sites was analysed. There was no comparison group, so the results are presented over time, not in a cause and effect format. Of the 120 families, only 70% completed the follow-up after 6 months.
At baseline and at six months, five things were measured to evaluate mental health, this included things like quality of life or anxiety. At follow-up only, a quantitative analysis was done, which compared White British and ethnic minority groups.
Children and young people from ethnic minority backgrounds made up 32% of the sample, compared to 21% of the Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) users.
This suggests that the drop-in service did in fact reach more ethnic minority families than usual. The only clear difference was that White British families were more likely to self-refer (44 of 79 compared with ten of 37). This indicates clinician referral is an important route for ethnic minority families to access these services.
Parent-reported quality of life for the child also differed between groups: it was lower in ethnic minority families, but ended higher after follow-up.
Because this was only an exploratory analysis with small follow-up samples, these findings should be interpreted with caution.
The lack of a control group makes it hard to attribute improvements in mental health solely to the drop-in service. Self-reported scores on things like quality-of-life can diverge between families and family members.
Extensions for this research may be on a more social impact point by involving more under represented groups or areas, expanding the research to more NHS centres, or maybe a similar study but with further breakdown of ethnic groups.
On a general note, this study explored an area which requires further focus, giving mental health attention to those who need it most, including children with long-term conditions, their families and ethnic minority communities.
About the author
