Association Between Mental and Physical Health Problems in High-Risk Adolescents: A Longitudinal Study

doi:10.1016/j.jadohealth.2008.01.013

Journal of Adolescent Health

Volume 43, Issue 3, September 2008, Pages 260-267

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jadohealth.2008.01.013 Get rights and content

Abstract

Purpose

This longitudinal study examined the relationship between mental and physical health problems in a sample of high-risk youth served in the public sector.

Methods

Participants included youth aged 9–18 years at baseline, randomly sampled from one of five public service sectors in San Diego County, California, and youths may have been active to more than one sector. Diagnoses for mood, anxiety, and disruptive disorders based on structured diagnostic interviews were determined at baseline and data regarding health-related problems were collected 2 years post-baseline.

Results

Mood and disruptive behavior disorders were related to cumulative health problem incidence, as well as aggregate measures of health problems and severe health problems. In addition mood disorder diagnosis was associated with higher rates of infectious diseases, respiratory problems, and weight problems. Disruptive disorder diagnosis was related to higher rates of risk behavior–related health problems.

Conclusions

The present work extends the research on the relationship between mental and physical health problems to adolescents served in the public sector, who are at especially high risk for behavioral and emotional problems. Potential mechanisms by which mental health problems may impact health problems are discussed. We suggest the development of effective interagency cooperation between medical and mental health systems to improve the care of youth with comorbid mental and physical disorders.

Section snippets

Participants

The sample for the present study was drawn from youth in a larger study of prevalence of mental health disorders and service use in publicly funded youth service sectors in San Diego County, California [25]. Youth who received services from one or more of five public service sectors (Alcohol and Drug, Juvenile Justice, Mental Health, school/ Serious Emotional Disturbance, Child Welfare) serving youth at risk for mental health or substance use problems and who were 6–17 years of age at baseline

Results

The percentage of participants who reported each type of health problem are presented in Table 3. Results from the final step of the hierarchical regression analyses for the summary health problem variables are presented in Table 4.

Discussion

This longitudinal study investigated the association of mental health problems and physical health of youth sampled from a large public sector community service setting. The main finding in this study is that mood and disruptive behavior disorders were significantly associated with cumulative health problem incidence, as well as our aggregate measures of health problems (i.e., HPI) and severe health problems (i.e., SHPI). In addition effects were consistent for mood disorder diagnosis

Acknowledgments

This work was supported primarily by National Institute of Health Grant 5U01MH055282 (to R.L.H.) and in part by Grants 5K01MH001695 and 5R01MH072961 (to G.A.A.).

References (38)

A.M. Bardone et al.
Adult physical health outcomes of adolescent girls with conduct disorder, depression, and anxiety
J Am Acad Child Adolesc Psychiatry
(1998)
P. Rohde et al.
Are adolescents changed by an episode of major depression?
J Am Acad Child Adolesc Psychiatry
(1994)
P.M. Lewinsohn et al.
Cross-sectional and prospective relationships between physical morbidity and depression in older adolescents
J Am Acad Child Adolesc Psychiatry
(1996)
S.E. Anderson et al.
Relationship of childhood behavior disorders to weight gain from childhood into adulthood
Ambul Pediatr
(2006)
G.A. Aarons et al.
Adolescent alcohol and drug abuse and health
J Adolesc Health
(1999)
S.F. Tapert et al.
Adolescent substance use and sexual risk-taking behavior
J Adolesc Health
(2001)
A.F. Garland et al.
Prevalence of psychiatric disorders in youths across five sectors of care
J Am Acad Child Adolesc Psychiatry
(2001)
D. Shaffer et al.
NIMH Diagnostic Interview Schedule for Children Version IV (NIMH DISC-IV): Description, differences from previous versions, and reliability of some common diagnoses
J Am Acad Child Adolesc Psychiatry
(2000)
M.E. Schwab-Stone et al.
Criterion validity of the NIMH Diagnostic Interview Schedule for Children Version 2.3 (DISC-2.3)
J Am Acad Child Adolesc Psychiatry
(1996)
P.W. Fisher et al.
Sensitivity of the Diagnostic Interview Schedule, 2nd edition (DISC-2.1) for specific diagnoses of children and adolescents
J Am Acad Child Adolesc Psychiatry
(1993)

D.P. Cantwell et al.

Correspondence between adolescent report and parent report of psychiatric diagnostic data

J Am Acad Child Adolesc Psychiatry

(1997)

J.H. Kashani et al.

Informant variance: The issue of parent–child disagreement

J Am Acad Child Psychiatry

(1985)

P.S. Jensen et al.

Parent and child contributions to diagnosis of mental disorder: Are both informants always necessary?

J Am Acad Child Adolesc Psychiatry

(1999)

H. Chen et al.

Adolescent axis I and personality disorders predict quality of life during young adulthood

J Adolesc Health

(2006)

B. Dickey et al.

Medical morbidity, mental illness, and substance use disorders

Psychiatr Serv

(2002)

D.R. Jones et al.

Prevalence, severity, and co-occurrence of chronic physical health problems of persons with serious mental illness

Psychiatr Serv

(2004)

J.M. Murphy et al.

Relations over time between psychiatric and somatic disorders: The Stirling County Study

Am J Epidemiol

(1992)

R.D. Goodwin et al.

Respiratory symptoms and mental disorders among youth: Results from a prospective, longitudinal study

Psychosom Med

(2004)

P. Cohen et al.

Prospective associations between somatic illness and mental illness from childhood to adulthood

Am J Epidemiol

(1998)

Cited by (50)

Factors associated with return musculoskeletal specialty visits
2021, Journal of Orthopaedics
Citation Excerpt :
The observation that the insurance group ‘other’ was associated with having a return visit and that commercial insurance was associated with lower rates of return visits may be due to differences in the amount of co-pays and deductibles between these categories, but may also be a reflection of socioeconomic status, which we could not account for. In an unplanned analysis, better patient-reported global health was strongly associated with lower symptoms of anxiety and depression, which is consistent with prior studies.22–28 This finding suggests that anticipating and addressing mental health opportunities in non-specialty and specialty care of musculoskeletal symptoms has the potential to alleviate symptoms and increase activity tolerance.
Prior studies suggested that a greater number of return visits is associated with greater symptoms of depression and greater symptom intensity.
All new adult patients presenting for musculsoskeletal specialty care between October 2017 and October 2018 were included. Patients completed the PROMIS Global Health, the PHQ-2, and the GAD-7 as part of usual care.
Accounting for confounders, having a return visit was associated with lower PROMIS Global Health, greater symptoms of depression, and greater symptoms of anxiety.
These findings provide support for the importance of 1) improved coordination with non-specialist referring clinicians, and 2) interdisciplinary care teams.
Level II, Prognostic.
Parental socioeconomic status, adolescents' screen time and sports participation through externalizing and internalizing characteristics
2020, Heliyon
Citation Excerpt :
In their paper they also made some arguments for how physical activity can promote mental health. Correspondingly, one possible explanation for this is that internalizing problems may be related to an increased risk of physical health symptoms (weight problems, somatic complaints, respiratory diseases and health behavior choices; Aarons et al., 2008; Biebl et al., 2011; Jamnik and DiLalla, 2019; Kantomaa et al., 2008; Nelson et al., 2013) and may induce young people to participate further in certain alternative activities that adversely impact their health. In the current study, higher levels of screen-based activities such as video gaming, computer use and television viewing restrained (H3 was supported) adolescents' (especially females’) vigorous sport participation (sports club participation and vigorous exercise); similarly previous studies have also revealed that self-organized exercise in youths (Sandercock Ogunleye and Voss, 2012) or sports club participation (Mäkelä et al., 2016) may reduce the time used on screen-based activities.
The socioeconomic status of parents is reportedly closely related to the digital screen usage and physical inactivity levels of children and adolescents. Internalizing and externalizing behavior characteristics may be linked to these associations and explain them. The purpose of the present study was to investigate the effects of parents' socioeconomic status (SES) on youths' total screen time along with physical inactivity through internalizing and externalizing behavior characteristics. Thus, we examined associations between parents' socioeconomic status (using scores based on several indicators) and adolescents' total digital screen exposure and physical inactivity level, together with the potentially predicting role of the adolescents' internalizing and externalizing behavior. For this, we assessed the internalizing and externalizing problem characteristics, total screen time exposure, physical inactivity level and parental socioeconomic status of a large cohort sample of Finnish adolescents (the Northern Birth Cohort, 1986 comprised 2899 males and 3059 females). The present study includes data collected in two phases, in 1985–1986 and 2000–2001. Path modeling suggests that a low SES of parents was directly associated with adolescents' physical inactivity level, while externalizing characteristics were a significant and additional contributing factor in adolescents' level of screen exposure in both genders. Gender moderated the relationship between adolescents' internalizing and externalizing characteristics and physical inactivity levels. The results also suggest that parents’ socioeconomic status constitutes a risk factor in relation to media screen exposure only in female adolescents. Implications of the findings are discussed.
Integration of Physical and Mental Health Services for Children and Young People with Eating Disorders and Functional Symptom Disorders: Discrete Choice Experiment
2024, SSRN
Connecting Mental and Financial Wellbeing: Insights for Employers
2024, SSRN
How Will a Shift to Value-Based Financial Models Affect Care for Hospitalized Children?
2024, Hospital Pediatrics
Effect of online intervention based on life skills for mental health, self-efficacy and coping skills among Arab adolescents in the Klang Valley, Malaysia: A cluster randomised controlled trial protocol
2024, PLoS ONE

View all citing articles on Scopus

View full text

Original articleAssociation Between Mental and Physical Health Problems in High-Risk Adolescents: A Longitudinal Study

Abstract

Purpose

Methods

Results

Conclusions

Section snippets

Participants

Results

Discussion

Acknowledgments

J Am Acad Child Adolesc Psychiatry

J Am Acad Child Adolesc Psychiatry

J Am Acad Child Adolesc Psychiatry

Ambul Pediatr

J Adolesc Health

J Adolesc Health

J Am Acad Child Adolesc Psychiatry

J Am Acad Child Adolesc Psychiatry

J Am Acad Child Adolesc Psychiatry

J Am Acad Child Adolesc Psychiatry

J Am Acad Child Adolesc Psychiatry

J Am Acad Child Psychiatry

J Am Acad Child Adolesc Psychiatry

J Adolesc Health

Medical morbidity, mental illness, and substance use disorders

Psychiatr Serv

Prevalence, severity, and co-occurrence of chronic physical health problems of persons with serious mental illness

Psychiatr Serv

Relations over time between psychiatric and somatic disorders: The Stirling County Study

Am J Epidemiol

Respiratory symptoms and mental disorders among youth: Results from a prospective, longitudinal study

Psychosom Med

Prospective associations between somatic illness and mental illness from childhood to adulthood

Am J Epidemiol

Original article
Association Between Mental and Physical Health Problems in High-Risk Adolescents: A Longitudinal Study