ArticleBMC health services research2021
Trends in the utilization of youth primary healthcare services and psychological distress.
Article in BMC health services research, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 13 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
13 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 17 citations in OpenAlex.
- Secular trends in mental health problems among young people in Norway: a review and meta-analysis.European child & adolescent psychiatry · 2025Pooled it
- General practitioner utilization by age, sex and disease in Norway from 2012-2023: a national health registry study.Scandinavian journal of primary health care · 2026Article
- Service Use and Engagement in Youth Mental Healthcare: National Trends in Jigsaw (2017-2022).Early intervention in psychiatry · 2026Article
- Family Predictors of Specialty Mental Health Service Use in Adolescents: A Prospective Cohort Study.Research on child and adolescent psychopathology · 2026Article
- Is university attendance associated with differences in health service use for a mental health problem in emerging adulthood? Evidence from the ALSPAC population-based cohort.Social psychiatry and psychiatric epidemiology · 2025Article
- Associations of adolescent mental health and parental education with healthcare use: a cohort study based on data from the Young-HUNT study, Norway.BMJ mental health · 2025Article
- Depressive symptoms, conduct problems and alcohol use from age 13 to 19 in Norway: evidence from the MyLife longitudinal study.Child and adolescent psychiatry and mental health · 2024Article
- Evaluating changes in functioning and psychological distress in visitors of the @ease youth mental health walk-in centres.BJPsych open · 2024Article
- The use of youth healthcare services and its association with health-related quality of life, physical and mental health and over-the-counter analgesics use in 13-19-year-old adolescents: a cross-sectional study.BMC public health · 2024Article
- Emotional Vulnerability in Adolescents (EVA) Longitudinal Study: Identifying individual differences in symptoms of adolescent depression and anxiety and their biopsychosocial mechanisms based on demographic and mental health characteristics.Wellcome open research · 2024Article
- SoCap YMH - youth mental health, social capital and help-seeking: a study protocol.Frontiers in public health · 2024Article
- Associations between Mental Health, Lifestyle Factors and Worries about Climate Change in Norwegian Adolescents.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2022Article
- Registered psychiatric service use, self-harm and suicides of children and young people aged 0-24 before and during the COVID-19 pandemic: a systematic review.Child and adolescent psychiatry and mental health · 2022Review
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
6 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundPsychological distress among young people is increasing in Northern Europe. According to established healthcare utilization theory, this will create a greater need for youth primary healthcare and subsequently lead to more help-seeking behavior by distressed young people. The aim of this study was to investigate the association between the use of youth primary healthcare services and psychological distress in times of increasing mental health problems and increased service need.
methodsThis study consisted of five waves of repeated annual cross-sectional data collected from young people (aged 13-19) living in Norway between 2014 and 2018 (n = 368,579). Population-weighted and design-adjusted generalized linear regression with a log-link was used to examine the use of youth primary healthcare services over time.
resultsWe found that a large proportion of young people use primary healthcare services and that young people with high levels of psychological distress use primary healthcare services twice as much as their peers with low levels of psychological distress. In addition, between 2014 and 2018 both psychological distress and primary healthcare service utilization increased: psychological distress increased by 5% and total primary healthcare service use increased by 500 consultations per 1000 young people. Overall, psychological distress had a conditional association with youth primary healthcare service use and could account for between 16 and 66% of the change in the use of services between 2014 and 2018, depending on the service type. However, the absolute increase seen in the use of primary healthcare services was mainly driven by young people with low levels of psychological distress as opposed to young people with high psychological distress. This suggest a converging trend.
conclusionsOur findings suggest that there might be serious barriers between need and help-seeking behavior for young people with high levels of psychological distress and that the pattern of utilization among young people with lower distress may indicate overuse, possibly as an inadvertent consequence of a newly introduced school absence policy. While further research is needed to confirm these findings, our work may inform healthcare providers and policy makers about primary healthcare utilization trends among young people.
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