What we do
About our project
Rising prevalence of mental health problems
Studies across the world show that more and more young people suffer from mental health problems nowadays, which seems exacerbated in recent years by global crises and challenges. Importantly, youth mental health problems are mostly studied as if fitting within traditional diagnostic boundaries of one disorder. Comorbidity is rarely addressed in current surveys of youth mental health even though it is well known that comorbidity is very common and that symptoms may fit different diagnostic categories in this age range.
Networks
Current research largely focused on traditional classifications of psychopathology that assume an underlying condition (e.g. depression) causing all the associated symptoms (e.g. low mood, loss of interest, fatigue, rumination etc.). By contrast, the network analysis approach better captures the complexity of youth mental health by appreciating these individual symptoms as discrete entities that influence each other (networks) and themselves reciprocally (feedback loops). Network analysis provides information on ‘centrality’ (i.e. which symptoms have the greatest importance within networks) and ‘bridge symptoms’ (i.e. interconnections/comorbidity between groups of symptoms), addressing the crucial need to identify targets for intervention.
Research aims
- How common are mental health problems, diagnoses, and their comorbidity among young people growing up today?
- Using novel longitudinal network analyses of mental health problems throughout development, can we identify target symptoms across childhood and early adolescence with a distinct role in the emergence of mental illness in adolescence?
- How are early life risk and resilience factors differentially associated with networks versus traditional diagnoses of mental health problems? And how is this related to access to care?
Impact
Globally, one in seven 10-19-year-olds experiences a mental disorder. The World Health Organization lists psychiatric illness among the leading causes of impairment and disability for children and adolescents. The increasing incidence of mental health problems among young people is a worldwide phenomenon and, therefore, we believe our project can be of considerable interest. As such, it is our aim that this study improves early prediction and more fine-grained personalized treatment, which will be applicable across nations.
Our research focus
Study design
Capitalizing on its prospective population-based design, this study uses data from the Generation R Study. We have collected unique in-depth psychiatric interviews from approximately 3500 17/18-year-olds, as well as repeated multi-rater measures of mental health problems from early childhood until adolescence. Furthermore, we have data on risk (e.g. adverse childhood experiences, family history of mental illness), resilience (e.g. self-esteem, strong peer relationships), and treatment-seeking factors across childhood and adolescence.
Innovative longitudinal network analyses will be conducted to analyse metrics of centrality and bridging symptoms. These will be studied in association with early life risk and resilience factors.
Funds & Grants
This project is funded by Stichting Vrienden van Sophia.
Collaborations
Internal Collaborations
- Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry/Psychology.
- Department of Epidemiology.
External collaborations
- Erasmus University Rotterdam (EUR),
- Department of Psychology,
- Education and Child Studies.
Our team
Principal Investigators
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Prof. P.W. (Pauline) Jansen
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Prof. M.H.J. (Manon) Hillegers, MD, PhD
Head of Department Child & Adolescent Psychiatry/psychology and principal investigator
