Abstract
Fifty looked after young people and their carers were interviewed to elicit whether, intuitively, they considered the young person to have a mental health problem and when they would seek professional help. This intuitive judgement of need was compared with responses to a mental health screen, and specific depression and conduct disorder scales. The results suggest that carers perceived 70% of young people to have significant mental health need; high levels of depression (28%) and conduct disorder (34%) were also found. Carers were four times more likely to identify mental health needs, both intuitively and on the mental health screen, than young people did themselves. Two-thirds of carers were intuitively accurate in identifying mental health need in their young people, although fewer than half of those identified as having high needs were being seen by a mental health specialist. Of concern, 23% of carers failed to identify needs, subsequently identified by the mental health screen. Perceived familial burden predicted a high mental health needs screen outcome. Given the established risks to mental health for this population of young people, the utility of a systematic mental health screen is discussed.
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