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Correlates of Mental Illness and Wellbeing in Children: Are They the Same? Results From the UK Millennium Cohort Study

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jaac.2016.05.019Get rights and content
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Objective

To investigate a framework of correlates of both mental illness and wellbeing in a large, current, and nationally representative sample of children in the United Kingdom.

Method

An ecologic framework of correlates including individual (sociodemographic and human capital), family, social, and wider environmental factors were examined in 12,347 children aged 11 years old from the UK Millennium Cohort Study. Mental illness and wellbeing scores were standardized to allow comparisons, and the variance explained by the different predictors was estimated.

Results

Mental illness and wellbeing were weakly correlated in children (r = 0.2), and their correlates were similar in some instances (e.g., family structure, sibling bullying, peer problems) but differed in others (e.g., family income, perceived socioeconomic status, cognitive ability, health status, neighborhood safety). The predictors included in the study explained 47% of the variance in symptoms of mental illness, with social relationships, home environment, parent health, cognitive ability, socioeconomic status, and health factors predicting large amounts of variance. A comparatively lower 26% of the variance in wellbeing was explained by the study variables, with wider environment, social relationships, perceived socioeconomic status, and home environment predicting the most variance.

Conclusion

Correlates of children’s mental illness and wellbeing are largely distinct, stressing the importance of considering these concepts separately and avoiding their conflation. This study highlights the relevance of these findings for understanding social gradients in mental health through the life course and the conceptualization and development of mental illness and wellbeing in childhood as precursors to lifelong development in these domains.

Key words

psychopathology
mental health
determinants
psychiatric epidemiology
social gradient

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Clinical guidance is available at the end of this article.

The authors thank the Economic and Social Research Council and the co-funding by a consortium of UK government departments for funding the MCS through the CLS at the UCL Institute of Education, London. The authors also thank a large number of stakeholders from academic, policy-maker, and funder communities and colleagues at CLS involved in data collection and management. The funders of the study had no role in study design, data collection, data analysis, data interpretation, or writing of this report.

Drs. Patalay and Fitzsimons served as the statistical experts for this research.

The corresponding author has full access to all the data in the study and takes responsibility for the integrity of the data and the accuracy of the data analysis.

The authors are grateful for the cooperation of the MCS families who voluntarily participated in the study.

Disclosure: Drs. Patalay and Fitzsimons report no biomedical financial interests or potential conflicts of interest.