Youth Mental Health Help-Seeking Information Needs and Experiences: A Thematic Analysis of Reddit Posts

Abstract

Youth are vulnerable to mental health challenges. Social media presents an opportunity to evaluate disinhibited mental health discourse and self-disclosure. The objective of this study was to explore reported experiences and information needs related to youth seeking support for mental health on the social media platform, Reddit.com. We searched two subreddits: r/mental health and r/teenagers on Reddit.com for posts made by youth (13–24 years) relating to mental health help-seeking behaviors and information needs. Posts were screened and relevant data were extracted, coded, and analyzed using thematic analysis. Thematic analysis of relevant posts yielded four themes: (1) navigating mental health issues, (2) disclosing to others, (3) barriers to seeking care, and (4) experiences seeking care. Youth may have a diverse range of mental health help-seeking-related information needs and may face several barriers throughout the process of seeking care.

Background

Adolescence is characterized by unique life changes and challenges that can make youth especially vulnerable to mental health difficulties (Arnett, 2000; Malla et al., 2018). While the factors that make youth vulnerable to mental illness have been debated, the youth population has significantly higher rates of mental illness than any other age group (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2021). According to Malla et al. (2018), some of the most common mental health disorders such as depression and anxiety originate in adolescence. Furthermore, mental health experiences and behavior differ throughout childhood and adolescence as individuals progress through developmental stages (Patalay & Fitzsimons, 2018).

Despite the high prevalence of mental illness in youth, mental health resource utilization and access to professional care remain low (Georgiades et al., 2019; Kaushik et al., 2016; Malla et al., 2018; Whitney & Peterson, 2019; MacDonald et al., 2020). According to MacDonald et al. (2020), there are several barriers (e.g., low mental health literacy, ability to disclose mental health needs, availability of services) which may contribute to this occurrence and these may differ between developmental stages (Gulliver et al., 2010; Schnyder et al., 2020). One key barrier to note in all steps of the help-seeking process is mental-health stigma. Stigmatization plays a prominent role in the lives of youth with mental health concerns (Elkington et al., 2012: Kaushik et al., 2016) and can prevent youth from seeking mental health services (Nearchou et al. 2018). Given that stigma may be a significant barrier to help-seeking, there is a need for alternative, anonymous options for support.

With the rise of digital technology use, youth are increasingly turning to online sources for mental health information and support (Lal et al., 2016). Additionally, the COVID-19 pandemic placed many restrictions on how people interact and seek care. These restrictions may impede a youth’s ability to access in-person services and support making online (e.g., social media) resources more appealing. Social media allows users to share information more freely by providing a level of anonymity (De Choudhury & De, 2014; Valentine et al., 2019). While some social media platforms (e.g., Instagram, Facebook) reveal user identity, other platforms allow for users to post anonymously. This feature may be particularly important for individuals concerned about stigma (De Choudhury & De, 2014). The anonymous nature of Reddit may allow for the collection of disinhibited youth mental health narratives revealing information that may otherwise not be available through traditional forms of data collection (e.g., interviews, surveys) (Pew Research Center, 2019; Proferes et al. 2021). This can lead to a more accurate understanding of youth mental health needs to improve mental health healthcare delivery and communication. Therefore, the objective of this study was to explore reported experiences and information needs related to youth seeking support for mental health on the social media platform, Reddit.com.

Methods

Platform Familiarization and Piloting

Multiple scans of Reddit were conducted prior to beginning the study to become familiar with the mechanisms, and functionality of the platform. To determine which subreddits and filters were most appropriate for answering our research question, a pilot search was conducted in which multiple subreddits were scanned for appropriate experiences. Ultimately, two subreddits were found to contain relevant posts and were utilized for data extraction: r/teenagers and r/mentalhealth. The r/teenagers subreddit was chosen due to our interest in studying the youth population, while the r/mentalhealth subreddit was utilized as it was one of the largest subreddits containing mental health-related posts. The r/teenagers subreddit also contained a “serious” subcategory that included several mental-health-related posts describing youth experiences appropriate for the current study. Unlike many other mental health-related subreddits, r/mentalhealth contained a significant number of posts by individuals who shared age identifiers which was key for ensuring posts represented the youth population.

All analyzed posts were pre-existing and acquired from a public forum space without solicitation. Data were not collected live as no posts were created or monitored; thus, ethics approval was not required for this study (Proferes et al., 2021).

Data Collection: Screening and Extraction

We collected data exclusively from Reddit through subreddits r/teenagers and r/mentalhealth. Reddit provides numerous filtering options. Users can filter posts by flair (topic-specific tags attached to posts), time frame, popularity, or newness of posts. The flair “serious” and filters “top” and “this year” were used to filter posts on r/teenagers. The filters “top” and “this year” were used on r/mentalhealth. The two flairs “Need Support” and “Question” were utilized for collecting data on r/mentalhealth. The “top” filter was used when scanning all three flairs as this filter allowed for the use of time frame filters. The filter “this year” was chosen to capture the most current mental health experiences and information needs of youth without being too narrow. The first 1000 posts were scanned by title for each flair used as only the most recent 1000 posts of each were visible on each reddit Flair. Posts scanned for “Need Support” and “Question” flairs were also scanned for age identifiers (e.g., “I am turning 21 next year”; “high schooler”). Relevant posts yielded from using the “serious” flair on r/teenagers and “Need Support” flair on r/mentalhealth were extracted on June 23, 2021. Relevant posts yielded from using the “Question” flair on r/mentalhealth were extracted on June 25, 2021. A total of 98 posts were extracted from Reddit based on post title and age identifiers. 23 posts were extracted from r/teenagers using the “serious” flair, 45 posts from r/mentalhealth using the “need support” flair and 30 posts from r/teenagers “question” flair. Posts that were accepted based on title and age identifiers were manually copied and pasted onto an excel sheet along with their title, subsequent responses, date of posting, and number of votes received for each post and response.

One researcher conducted a full review of each post to determine whether parent posts (original posts) related to mental health experiences or expressed information needs of youth. For the present study, youth was defined as ages 13–24. Posts on r/teenagers were assumed to be posted by individuals aged 13–24 as the statement “We do not have any age-restriction in place but do keep in mind this is targeted for users between the ages of 13 to 19” was displayed on the r/teenagers subreddit page. Posts scanned on r/mentalhealth were manually screened for age indicators within the post text.

Data Analysis

Braun and Clarke’s (2006) methods for thematic analysis were employed. Following data extraction, 98 posts were pasted into a word document and reviewed by one team member (MS) for the purpose of data familiarization and developing initial ideas. All included posts were then coded and analyzed to determine relevance to the research question. One team member (MS) proceeded with grouping codes into themes and subthemes which were reviewed by two other team members (KW and SE) and edited to ensure that themes were appropriate for the codes generated. One researcher (MS) selected quotes to portray the themes and subthemes, which were reviewed by SE and KW. Scientific rigor was maximized during thematic analysis through continuous verification via reflexive discussions, and inductive analysis through utilizing an audit trail (Braun & Clarke, 2006).

Results

Analysis of Reddit posts revealed a diverse range of mental health experiences and information needs. Youth expressed experiences and information needs in terms of navigating mental health issues, disclosing to others, and barriers to seeking care and experiences seeking care. Three thousand Reddit posts were screened, and 98 were included. 57 posts were classified under Disclosing to others, 24 under Barriers to seeking care, 26 under Experiences seeking care, and 20 under Experiencing symptoms. Note that some posts represented multiple themes, especially long narrative posts. While both parent posts [P] and responses [R] were coded in our analysis, we did not find a difference in the themes between parent posts and responses. Parent posts were more narrative in nature while responses were shorter and often remarks of support toward the user behind the parent post; thus, themes were more prevalent in parent posts than replies.

Navigating Mental Health Issues

Overall, youth face a diverse range of mental health difficulties. Several youths wrote about their experiences navigating through various personal mental health issues or mental health issues of others prior to seeking out or receiving treatment. Questions posed by youth were mainly regarding their own personal mental health issues. This theme contains three subthemes relating to: helping others, managing difficult emotions and symptoms, and understanding signs and symptoms.

Helping others

This subtheme refers to youths’ experiences of managing the mental health issues of others and youth seeking advice on how to help others with specific mental health issues. These moments generally occurred between individuals with a significant relationship (e.g., youth and partner, youth and friend). One individual explained their long-term challenge trying to manage their girlfriend’s struggle with self-harm:

My girlfriend . . . she is struggling with self-harm, I must stop her, and I’ve been trying my best for last 3 months. I need advice. . . . [P]

Another individual expressed concerns about a friend’s dietary habits and lifestyle changes and asked how to help the friend:

. . .I’m 17 and my female friend of the same age told me she pukes to keep low calories. . . . [she] is more and more shifting to a body obsessive lifestyle, weighing calories, working out a lot, etc. How do I help her? [P]

Managing difficult emotions and symptoms

Youth reflected upon their struggles managing various emotions and symptoms of their own mental health issues. Some youth expressed uncertainty with how to manage specific symptoms and feelings. For example, one individual wrote:

My depression is causing me physical pain. . . It’s getting worse every day and I don’t know how to stop it or if I even want to. [P]

One topic that appeared in several posts was the use of medications to manage symptoms of mental illness. In these posts, youth expressed concerns about the side effects of medications, primarily referencing the experiences of others.

I’m 18 years old, struggled with my mental health most of my life. . . I think I should get on antidepressants and stop smoking. But everything I’ve looked up . . . says they make you numb and can do more bad then good. . .Are antidepressants really that bad? [P]

Understanding signs and symptoms

Many youths sought knowledge on what encompasses certain mental illnesses. This included understanding how to recognize a given mental illness and how to discern whether help is needed. For example, the following post was about what qualifies as having a specific mental illness:

. . . I would be nonstop yawning and couldn’t breathe . . . [The school therapist] said that I could have been having an anxiety attack especially since I was so stressed and stuff at the time. How can I tell if I’m having a panic attack or anxiety attack? [P]

Other individuals were interested in understanding signs and symptoms of mental illnesses and discerning whether they required professional help:

. . .I kind of lose control of all filters and all that comes out of my mouth is just venom when I am arguing or just pissed off in general. . .Should I look into being diagnosed [with PTSD]? [P]

Lastly, some youth wanted to know if their signs and symptoms were “normal” or if there was something “wrong” with them. An individual wrote:

Is it normal having a consistent amount of panic attacks? . . . So, would any of you have any idea of what to do? Because I definitely don’t. [P]

Disclosing to Others

Youth reported varying experiences with disclosing personal mental health information to others. While some youth more readily embraced self-disclosing to others, others attempted to hide their illness or exhibited an unwillingness to disclose. Youth also reported barriers when disclosing personal health information prior to treatment. Three subthemes were formed: self-disclosure experiences, social barriers, and psychological barriers.

Self-disclosure experiences

First, the sentiments and experiences surrounding disclosing personal mental health information varied on Reddit. While some individuals found self-disclosure to be helpful, others reported an inability or unwillingness to disclose their issues. One individual describes their experience self-disclosing to a friend:

. . .Finally, just now, I told my best friends everything, from the suicidal thoughts I had in 5th grade, to the current state of my mental health. All the weight lifted off my shoulders ngl [not gonna lie]. [P]

In contrast, many others wanted to hide their illness and were against sharing their mental health issues:

I also want to talk to someone, a professional but I don’t want to be looked as depressed or insane, which I am depressed, but I don’t want them to realize it. [P]

Of note, several youths expressed an unwillingness or inability to disclose their mental health struggles with their parents.

My possible neurodivergence has been very disrupting for me. . .I really want professional advice on this, though I’m pretty sure that my parents will refuse to take me to the psychiatrist for diagnosis. I can’t even talk to them about my problems. . . [P]

Social barriers

Social barriers are derived from societal constructs stemming from social norms, perceptions, and values. Many youths reported social barriers that prevented or deterred them from disclosing their mental health status, including the perceived expectations, perceptions, and reactions of others. For example, many youths wrote about their struggle to self-disclose to parents due to anxiety surrounding reactions and perceptions:

. . . I don’t really know how she [parent] feels about therapy (I don’t know if she [parent] considers it shameful/embarrassing/only for really crazy people.) [P]

Other youth expressed concerns about the way they would appear to others if they openly shared their mental health struggles. For example, one youth wrote:

I don’t want to seem dramatic for attention, and I’m afraid if I ask for help irl [in real life] I’ll get called dramatic. I’m just tired of everything. I don’t know what to do. [P]

Another individual commented on how gender roles and the fear of appearing weak affects their decisions:

I want to reach out for help, but at the same time I’m fucking terrified of being weak and admitting I feel bad. I’m a girl, but I kind of feel that “never open up, be a human rock” pressure that a lot of men say they experience. [P]

Psychological barriers

Psychological barriers to disclosing to others refers to internal thoughts, feelings or beliefs that prevent or deter individuals from revealing their mental health issues. Some youth commented on feeling embarrassed:

When I was a younger teen, I cried a lot when I didn’t totally get my depression and my sister and mom would sort of laugh it off and I felt really embarrassed. . . [P]

Another individual mentioned feeling ashamed and scared:

I know that I can’t do this [struggle with mental health issues] by myself anymore, but I just feel so scared and ashamed to have this conversation with my parents. [P]

Barriers to Seeking Care

Youth reported both tangible barriers and emotional barriers that make accessing mental health resources and help-seeking particularly challenging. This theme includes three subthemes: knowledge, access, and perception.

Knowledge

Multiple individuals expressed some knowledge gaps with respect to seeking mental health care. Without the information necessary to facilitate help-seeking, youth may be at a disadvantage when trying to access mental health services. Youth posed questions such as who qualifies for therapy, how to find a program or therapist, and how therapy works. For example:

The thought of asking for therapy also scares me as I’m not sure if it costs money and have no clue how it works. Just the shear thought of opening up to a complete stranger scares me. [P]

Others were unsure of how to start receiving care in the first place:

I want to see an expert who can provide answers, but I don’t know where to start. Also, please let me know if you have suggestions for types of programs or therapies I can look for. [P]

Access

Individuals wrote about barriers to accessing mental health services. Some wrote about tangible barriers (long waitlists, cost of services, language barriers, etc.); for example:

I keep seeing this and that about sites like BetterHelp, but I’m really worried that places like those require a lot of money. [P]

Others spoke about emotional challenges when attempting to secure mental health care. For example, one individual wrote about the courage needed to make an appointment:

. . . I tried to make an appointment to get tested for ADHD, but I scheduled the wrong thing and couldn’t work up the courage to make a new appointment . . . [P]

Perceptions

Many youths wrote about the varying perceptions they had regarding different mental health services, some of which may serve as barriers to accessing care. If an individual has a negative perception of the service (e.g., does not work, cannot be trusted, side effects), they may be less likely to seek out services whether that individual has any previous experience with mental health services. Most posts regarding perceptions of mental health services were specific to medicine and healthcare professionals (doctors, therapists, etc.). For example:

And my mom says I need medicine, but I don’t want to turn into a fat, slow, idiot again. I would legitimately rather die than take meds and ruin my future, GPA, and social life. [P]

Another wrote about their feelings toward doctors:

Talking to a doctor always just makes things worse. I’m just stuck feeling like this. [P]

Experiences Seeking Care

This theme reflects experiences of youth during their process of receiving care, including feeling dismissed or ignored, experiencing long wait times, dissatisfaction with a service and the problematic pattern of negative experiences with services preventing further help-seeking. Furthermore, this theme includes posts containing mental health service suggestions and feedback by youth struggling with mental health issues. Subthemes include unhelpful and challenging experiences, helpful experiences, and suggestions.

Unhelpful and challenging experiences

Several youths commented on unhelpful or challenging experiences when receiving care (therapy, doctors, medications, etc.). Some youth felt dismissed or ignored while utilizing mental health services:

I slipped into extreme episodes of what I just know was depression. . . I tried to explain this to my counselor, but she dismissed it as down to my anxiety. I told her that I have episodes of feeling completely empty, and she told me it’s just due to stress. [P]

Another individual commented on the prolonged wait time for mental health services:

I’ve waited 3 horrible months for a psychiatrist appointment to get tested for ADHD and now it seems like I’m just gonna leave with more questions than answers. . . [P]

This individual also expressed dissatisfaction with the service they received as well as their unwillingness to seek further care due to their negative experience. This was not unique to a single individual as other youth also expressed the same hesitancy:

I’m so scared of going back to therapy because I feel so embarrassed, that I’m making it all up in my head or that I’m being over dramatic. . .I’m so scared to seek therapy again in case I get told it’s just anxiety again. I just feel like there is something much more going on. [P]

Helpful experiences

There were some helpful experiences described by youth, mostly on topics of therapy and medications. Some youth simply stated that therapy was helpful and recommended therapy to others:

I’d heavily recommend seeing a therapist. I had really bad depression and seeing a good therapist has helped me so much. [R]

Others commented on their helpful experience with medication:

In my personal experience [medicine prescribed for mental health issues] can help you. Of course, would you first have to find the right one for you and they will not erase the problem. Mine are helping me to feel a little bit more stable, the bad day are still bad, but it doesn’t get me as near as before. [R]

Suggestions

A few youths mentioned specific preferences related to mental health services. One individual expressed a desire to have anonymous therapy to avoid detection from others:

. . .I want to try to find some kind of anonymous therapy so I can try to get some help without him [parent] knowing. . . [P]

Others were hesitant about making an appointment for mental health care. One individual inquired about email booking for appointments:

I think I might contact my GP, but I’m a little on the shy side. Do you know if it’s possible to book an appointment with a GP via email? [R]

Discussion

We explored the current mental health-related experiences and information needs of youth discussed on the social media platform Reddit. Similar to other studies investigating youth mental health topics, our study identifies barriers and challenges youth face while managing mental health-related issues (Kaushik et al., 2016; Lynch et al., 2016; MacDonald et al., 2020; Malla et al., 2018; Nearchou et al., 2018; Reardon et al., 2017; Stunden et al., 2020).

Navigating Mental Health Issues

Low mental health literacy is a significant barrier to effectively navigating mental health issues (MacDonald et al., 2020). According to MacDonald et al. (2020), mental health literacy is a prerequisite to initiating help-seeking and improves one’s ability to recognize and manage mental health issues. Our findings align with prior research in that several posts revealed youth’s difficulties managing and understanding their mental health issues as well as those of close others. Youth commonly sought to understand what encompasses mental health illnesses (e.g., what qualifies as having an illness, what are the symptoms) and expressed uncertainty in managing these illnesses (e.g., when to get help, how to manage symptoms). These knowledge gaps illustrate low mental health literacy as a barrier to effectively understanding mental health issues and recognizing a need to seek help.

Disclosing to Others

Our findings show a range of youth experiences when deciding whether to disclose personal mental health information to others. Previous research has shown that despite mental health-related social stigma, youth with mental health issues have found self-disclosure empowering and beneficial (Buchholz et al., 2015). Some youth on Reddit shared a similar perception of self-disclosure noting their experience to be helpful and an important step in improving their mental health, although some youth found that self-disclosure took substantial mental effort. Our findings present several psychological barriers youth experience when disclosing to others including feelings of embarrassment, shame, and fear. Previous research has also shown that mental health-related social stigma is a significant barrier to help-seeking leading individuals to avoid seeking care and expressing an unwillingness to disclose their mental health issues to others (Kaushik et al., 2016; Lynch et al., 2016; Nearchou et al., 2018). Many of the youth experiences captured in this study align with these previous findings, as several youths expressed concerns about the reactions and perceptions of others. Youth were also concerned about how they appeared in front of others. This led to individuals attempting to hide their mental health struggles and avoiding disclosing their issues to others.

Barriers to Seeking Care

The posts evaluated in this study revealed several barriers that youth face while seeking care including knowledge gaps relating to the mental health services themselves. As mentioned previously, mental health literacy includes the knowledge necessary to access care (MacDonald et al., 2020). Youth expressed knowledge gaps when it came to how services work, who qualifies for services, and how to get started with services. Prior research has also recognized more tangible barriers to seeking care including costs, wait times, fragmented services, and distance to services (MacDonald et al., 2020; Stunden et al., 2020). The findings from the present study revealed similar barriers. Lastly, the present study revealed a third category of barriers, perceptions. Youth had varying perceptions of services before receiving them. Negative perceptions regarding mental health services can serve as a significant barrier during the help-seeking process. Most of the sentiments expressed on Reddit were negative and largely focused on doctors and medications. Reardon et al. (2017) also discussed barriers related to perceptions of mental health professionals and noted trust and confidence, quality service, consequences of services, effectiveness of services, fear of treatment, and fear of dismissal and blame are all barriers youth and parents have faced when seeking care.

Experiences Seeking Care

The last step of the help-seeking process involves engaging in care. We identified two categories of youth experiences participating in care: helpful experiences and unhelpful and challenging experiences. Some youth found select mental health services to be helpful and would recommend them to others. However, many youths commented on less positive experiences with mental health resources and services. Several youths noted feeling dismissed and ignored. These types of experiences may reinforce youths’ fear of being dismissed and blamed, as mentioned above (Reardon et al., 2017). Another problematic pattern observed was hesitancy to seek further help due to a previous negative experience. Henderson et al. (2013) also commented on the discontinuation of mental health services by youth and noted that this behavior was increased by several factors including lack of mental health knowledge and expectations of discrimination and prejudice.

Future directions

Given the barriers to help-seeking revealed through this study, future research should explore potential solutions to overcoming these barriers and further investigate the preferences of youth concerning mental health services and resources. Some youth expressed specific preferences surrounding mental health services, for example, desire to remain anonymous and to avoid direct person-to-person contact. However, preferences expressed by youth on Reddit were limited in their description and warrant further investigation.

Another priority for future research is mental health literacy. For example, strategies are needed to improve youth’s ability to understand and navigate their own and other’s mental health issues and available mental health services and resources. Additionally, informing youth about how they can receive help (particularly anonymous help) can aid in facilitating the help-seeking process. This could also reduce concerns regarding social stigma and psychological barriers. Furthermore, researchers should continue to use Reddit as a source of information for qualitative studies given the level of anonymity it gives to its users and the rich, disinhibited narratives that it provides.

Lastly, future research is needed to understand differences in mental health needs and experiences across gender identities and developmental stages, as differences have been previously documented related to help seeking behaviors (Patalay & Fitzsimons, 2018; Rosenfield & Mouzon, 2013). For example, Schnyder et al. (2020) reported that for younger children and youth (4–12 years old), “self-reliance,” “unsure if help needed,” and “the problem will get better by itself” were the top three parent-reported barriers to their children seeking mental health care. Whereas for older youth (13–17 years old), the top three barriers reported by parents were “self-reliance,” “child refused,” and “unsure where to get help.” Analysis of differences by gender and developmental stage may provide insights into how mental health care can be improved for specific subgroups within the larger child and adolescent population.

Strengths and limitations

While mental health needs and experiences have been previously studied, this study analyses unrestricted, informal narratives of youth revealing themes that may not be apparent when using traditional modes of data collection. Data extracted from platforms such as Reddit allow users to maintain anonymity which may lead users to be more candid and willing to share their experiences (De Choudhury & De, 2014). This improves the accuracy and representativeness of the narratives used in the study. A study strength was verification by multiple researchers throughout each step including preparation, data collection, analysis, and document writing. Lastly, to the best of our knowledge, this is the first study to manually extract and utilize data from Reddit to investigate the mental health experiences and information needs of youth.

Although nearly 3,000 Reddit posts were collected for this study, our findings cannot be generalized to all youth struggling with mental health issues given that each youth experience is unique to the individual posting. Furthermore, there is no publicly available real-time demographic information on Reddit users, so we are not able to describe our sample or comment on applicability. Additionally, though it has been documented that mental health and help seeking behaviors differ between age groups and genders (Farrer et al., 2008; Rosenfield & Mouzon, 2013), the anonymous nature of many of the posts we collected limited the comparisons that could be made between subgroups of users including age groups and genders. While Reddit use has been reported to be different across genders (e.g., males accessing Reddit more often than females) (Pew Research Center, 2019), recent reports have suggested females are more active on “personal” subreddits and more likely to discuss the need for social supports (Thelwall & Stuart, 2019). The inability to capture data on gender, unless disclosed in a post, limits our understanding of gender differences related to the mental health experiences and information needs we collected. Despite the inability to include demographic data, the results of this study can provide valuable insight into the general mental health experiences and information needs of youth and may help to inform future studies investigating subgroups within the youth population.

Another limitation to using Reddit as a data source is the functionality of the platform itself. While Reddit serves as a rich information source, the limited filtering options make it difficult to manually extract data for narrower sets of inclusion criteria (e.g., filtering for specific days). This limitation may be partially overcome by using automated systems for data extraction such as a Python wrapper PRAW (De Choudhury & De, 2014). Although extracting data from Reddit poses limitations (e.g., assumptions about the relative accuracy of the posts given restricted platform user data), a large sum of posts from a known time frame were still able to be extracted from relevant subcommunities and used to draw general conclusions.

Conclusion

This study showed that youth have a diverse range of mental health help-seeking related information needs and face several barriers throughout the process of seeking care. Reddit serves as a unique platform for analyzing these needs and barriers as the anonymous nature of the platform allows for the collection of more uninhibited discourse. While mental health needs and experiences have been previously studied, this study analyses unrestricted, informal narratives of youth revealing themes that may not be apparent when using traditional modes of data collection. The use of Reddit in this study also highlights the necessity of using novel methods for exploring mental health discourse, reducing stigma, and creating a space for discussion.

Future research should explore solutions to overcoming mental health help-seeking barriers faced by youth, further investigate the information preferences of youth concerning mental health resources and examine the relative value of using novel methods to analyze mental health discourse.