Excellent post! Depression is increasingly becoming a serious mental health problem affecting the adolescents. Access to mental health care is unequal in different population groups. A multicenter study conducted by the World Health Organization examined the pathways to mental health care in the developed countries underlines the necessity of a stronger collaboration between psychiatrists with general practitioners (GPs), physicians, and psychologists, since general practitioners are the main referral points for mental health care and this could improve the access to care (Davoodi et al., 2018). I agree with your point that “adolescents are vulnerable to risk factors such as pressure to conform with peers, exploration of identity, media influence, gender norms, disparity, quality of home life, sexual violence, and peer relationships”.

Studies conducted in the United States and the United Kingdom have identified some significant barriers that increase the impact of mental health problems, including socio-cultural (religious beliefs and practices), economic (health insurance), systemic (problem in the organization of mental health services), and individual (such as denial of psychological problems). In the United States, for example, people are more likely to seek mental health care if the family is supportive and a family member had a positive experience with psychiatric services (Tirintica et al., 2018). Furthermore, some studies have found that some people tend to avoid mental health services because they fear specialized treatment, such as ECT. The adolescents may not access mental health services for depression and somatization disorders due to lack of awareness and underrepresentation (Tirintica et al., 2018). They also avoid mental health services due to stigmatization and lack of understanding of depression and somatization disorders.

References

Davoodi, E., Wen, A., Dobson, K. S., Noorbala, A. A., Mohammadi, A., & Farahmand, Z. (2018). Early maladaptive schemas in depression and somatization disorder. Journal of Affective Disorders, 235, 82-89. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jad.2018.04.017 Tirintica, A. R., Andjelkovic, I., Sota, O., Pirlog, M. C., Stoyanova, M., Mihai, A., & Wallace, N. (2018). Factors that influence access to mental health services in South-Eastern Europe. International Journal of Mental Health Systems, 12(1), 1-8. https://ijmhs.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s13033-018-0255-6