“Many children will experience impairing psychiatric problems over the course of their childhood”. Certain psychiatric disorders were associated more with specific problems as adults, but the best way to predict whether or not someone would have issues as an adult would be having multiple psychiatric problems during childhood.
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Those later struggles included addiction, early pregnancy, criminal charges, difficulty getting and keeping jobs, education failures and housing instability, the study authors said. The study stresses that the high risk of adulthood issues was not limited to those diagnosed with psychiatric disorders; participants who had subthreshold psychiatric problems when they were kids still had three times higher odds of adverse adulthood outcomes than those with no history of psychiatric problems. “The burden is then later seen in adulthood, when these problems become costly public health and social issues”.
During childhood, about 26 percent of the participants met the criteria for depression, anxiety or a behavioral disorder, 31 percent had milder forms below the full threshold of a diagnosis, and almost 43 percent had no mental health problems.
It’s also worth noting that the researchers did not find a cause and effect connection between poor mental health during childhood and a hard time finding success during adulthood, however there was an undeniable association.
The study of 1,420 individuals from 11 predominantly rural counties in North Carolina was conducted by William Copeland, PhD, of Duke University Medical Center in Durham, NC, and coauthors.
Psychiatric problems often develop during childhood years and continue into adulthood, however, the new study suggests that psychiatric disorders in children have the potential to negatively affect their adult lives even if the disorder itself does not continue on into adulthood. When these issues are left untreated, they can potentially grow into debilitating psychiatric disorders.
Dr. Lahey says there are a number of possible causal links between psychopathology in childhood and psychopathology in adulthood.
The researchers found out that when compared with children who did not have any psychiatric issues, those children that did were six times as likely to wind up with difficulties in adulthood, which is a staggering statistic, and it shows just how severe even minor psychiatric issues can become.
” When it comes to key psychiatric problems – depression, anxiety, behavior disorders – there are successful interventions and prevention programs”, he added.
A big problem with mental health in the United States is that most children don’t get treatment and those who do don’t get what we would consider optimal care.
Copeland feels the study is proof that mental health issues need to be addressed without stigma, and as early as possible. The rates among those with milder forms of mental illness were about 42 percent and 23 percent, respectively.
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However, a psychiatric diagnosis as a child raised the odds that the person in adulthood would have a lot of rough parts, even if they did not have the psychiatric problem in their adult years.
