Researchers Michelle Munson and James Jaccard Isolate Motivational Factors Influencing Mental Health Service Use During the Transition to Adulthood
A new study by researchers at the NYU Silver School of Social Work has found that, among 60 young adults with a history of significant mental health difficulties, few used psychiatric services, medications, or other mental health services on a continuous basis as they transitioned to adulthood. The study isolated factors that young adults discussed influenced their service use.
The qualitative study by Associate Professor Michelle Munson, Professor James Jaccard, and their colleagues in Georgia and Ohio sheds light on the problem of untreated mental illness among young adults nationwide, and explores factors that influence mental health service use decisions during young adulthood among those exiting child welfare, juvenile justice, mental health, and other publicly funded systems of care.
In the study, "Static, dynamic, integrated, and contextualized: A framework for understanding mental health service utilization among young adults," published in the journal Social Science and Medicine (Volume 75, Issue 8, pp. 1441-1449), Munson and colleagues explore with in-depth, semi-structured interviews the experiences of people ages 18 to 25 in one Midwestern state, and the reasons why in most cases their engagement with mental health services turned sporadic or came to a stop. By design, all 60 participants included in the study were currently struggling with continued mood and emotional difficulties and shared three childhood experiences -- mood disorder diagnosis, use of public mental health services, and experience with social service systems.
Results showed that few of the study participants were continuous service users during the transition to adulthood, with most either discontinuing services (42%) or reporting single (22%) or multiple gaps (15%) in service use as they moved from adolescence to adulthood -- a juncture when, developmentally, young adults are in the midst of solidifying their identity and making life transitions and, institutionally, they are aging out of children's social service systems. The reasons for not using services consistently ranged from participants' doubts about the efficacy of services and concerns about one's "image," to insurance barriers and long wait times for counseling and other types of assistance at overburdened social service agencies.
Munson and colleagues' study provides future researchers with a mid-level theory, which is an integrated and comprehensive framework for further research and understanding about the sporadic use of mental health services by young adults. The framework includes the dynamic nature of service use and a template of multi-level factors to consider at any one point in time.