Concerns about mental health among young Australians have doubled since 2016, a survey of nearly 30,000 people suggests.
Mission Australia’s annual youth survey report, released on Wednesday, found mental health was the top issue facing Australia in the eyes of people aged 15 to 19.
It found 43% of respondents listed mental health as the nation’s biggest concern, compared with 33% last year and 20.6% in 2016.
Alcohol and drugs were the top concern for 28.7% of respondents, while 23.4% said Australia should be most worried about equity and discrimination. The survey asked respondents to list three issues they considered the most important in Australia today.
Overall, those surveyed reported an optimistic outlook, with two-thirds saying they felt happy and positive about their lives.
But the report included the alarming finding that almost one in five (18.5%) Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander respondents felt “very sad/sad with life”, compared with 9.4% among non-Indigenous young people.
Young women disclosed “higher levels of concern in relation to coping with stress, school or study problems, and body image than young males”, though young men were not exempt from these pressures. Young women were also more likely to report “barriers to employment”.
Bullying was listed by 17.4% of respondents, a figure that has steadily grown since 2016, while young people were less concerned about education and population issues.
The survey of 28,000 young people also asked respondents what they were personally concerned about, with 43% listing “coping with stress”, which came ahead of school or study problems (34%) and mental health (31%).
Asked about the future, just under two-thirds of respondents felt either positive (46.7%) or very positive (15.5%), while 6.8% felt negative and 3.1% very negative. Young men were more likely to feel positive about the future than women.
Of the 39% of respondents who reported encountering barriers to finding work, school responsibilities (20%), a lack of skills or experience (15%) and lack of jobs (12%) were the main impediments.
The top three barriers to moving out of home were housing costs (70%), financial stability (63%) and availability of housing (42%). Twice as many women were likely to cite security and safety as a barrier to moving out of home.
Mission Australia’s chief executive, James Toomey, said the findings of growing concern about mental health were “worrying”.
But he said public campaigns had increased awareness and “in part, reduced stigma of mental health issues”.
“Yet, we do need to ensure that awareness is matched with adequate access to the right help when needed,” he said.
“Unfortunately, we also know that help is not always there. The service system is difficult to navigate and the support offered can be patchy, especially outside of metro areas, and often not tailored to the needs of young people and their help-seeking preferences. This has to be tackled as a priority.”
