From: Primary care and youth mental health in Ireland: qualitative study in deprived urban areas
Theme | Enabler | Barrier |
---|---|---|
Identification of mental health and/or substance use problem in a young person | • Outreach work | • Prioritisation of crisis cases at the expense of early intervention |
• Activity-based engagement | • Confidentiality and consent issues, particularly around parental involvement for under 18s | |
• Mental health/drug awareness promotion | • Concerns around formally treating a young person for a mental health or substance use problem | |
• Specific training in youth mental health/substance use problems | ||
• Experience in dealing with young people with mental health/substance use problems | ||
• Using formal assessment tools | ||
• Building a trusting relationship with the young person | ||
Treatment of young person for mental health and/or substance use problem | • A holistic/collaborative approach, including high quality communication, between healthcare agencies, e.g. primary care, secondary care and community-based agencies | • Limited funding resources result in a lack of age-appropriate services |
• Training for primary healthcare professionals, in particular, GPs in addressing youth mental health and substance use problems effectively. | • Crisis intervention taking precedence over early intervention | |
On-going engagement | • Intrinsic motivation of the young person | • If young person is attending because of external pressure |
• Continued/repeated opportunities for engagement | • Unwillingness of some young people to attend counselling | |
• Personal achievement goals | • Transition from child to adult services | |
• Having the structure of school or work to continue with during treatment or return to after treatment |