The ONS ‘Children’s Well-being 2015’ report reveals a number of findings that provide insight into mental health problems in children.   

A new measure of children’s mental ill-health is included in response to feedback from stakeholders who identified mental health as missing from the initial set of measures for children. It uses the total difficulties score from the child self-completion aspect of the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) from the UK Household Longitudinal Survey (Understanding Society).

Research revealed and concluded that children, who quarreled with their mother more than once a week, were three times more likely to report a high or very high score than children who argued less frequently and had the strongest associations with mental ill-health. Such results are consistent with findings from academic research and previous national surveys of children’s mental health.

One-third of children who were relatively unhappy with their appearance reported high or very high total difficulties score, compared with one in 12 children who were relatively happy with their appearance.

Children who spent more than three hours on social media websites on a normal school night were more than twice as likely to report a high or very high score as those who spent less time on social media.

The ONS suggests that future analysis could look at changes to a child’s mental health as they move into and out of poor peer and familial relationships.

Source:
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplep...wellbeing/2015-10-20