Abstract
To the Editor
Recently, Sheppard et al. (2017) reported that almost 60% of Australian adolescents with unmet psychological needs use alcohol or other drugs as a self-management strategy. Given that young people experience a number of barriers to help-seeking, including the belief that they can resolve the problem by themselves, it is likely that when young people do present for help with psychological problems, many will have experienced alcohol-related harm. We examined help-seeking for depression in a sample of 1884 high-school students (47.6% male, mean age = 15.9 years, standard deviation [SD] = 0.6 years), as well as alcohol use and problems (Lubman et al., 2016). Participants reported lifetime alcohol use, associated adverse outcomes over the past 6 months, and whether they had sought help, either from informal sources (e.g. parents, friends) or health professionals (e.g. doctors, psychologists). It was anticipated that there would be a relatively low incidence of alcohol misuse given the age of the sample, so seeking help from different sources were collapsed into a dichotomous help-seeking (yes/no) variable.
In total, 247 participants (12.8%) had sought help for depression by the 12-month follow-up. Participants who had also sought help for alcohol or other drug use problems (n = 30; 1.6%) were excluded. There was a significant association between seeking help for depression and (1) lifetime alcohol use (χ2 = 36.411, p < 0.001) and (2) alcohol-related problems (χ2 = 9.421, p = 0.009; Table 1).
Association between seeking help for depression and alcohol use and problems.
The results indicate that alcohol misuse is prevalent among adolescents who seek help for depression. Indeed, over a third of participants reported consuming three or more separate types of alcohol-related problems over the study period. This is of concern as early, untreated alcohol problems are associated with poorer long-term clinical outcomes, and previous research has identified that general practitioners and mental health professionals do not readily identify co-occurring alcohol misuse among young people presenting with depression (Lubman et al., 2007). Our findings support the notion that routine screening for alcohol misuse should be standard for all young people presenting with psychological problems, given consuming alcohol or other drugs is such a common self-management strategy (Sheppard et al., 2017). In addition, it is critical that treatment for depression in young people highlights the harms associated with alcohol and drug use as a self-management strategy and focuses on the development of alternate coping strategies.
Footnotes
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The authors disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: The study was supported by a National Health and Medical Research Council Grant (NHMRC Grant APP1047492).