Exploring mental health treatment disparities among youths aged 12 to 17 who experienced major depressive episode with severe impairment in past year in the United States

Background: The percentage of youths aged 12-17 who had past year major depressive episode (MDE) has increased from 8.0% in 2010 to 8.2% in 2011. Among youths aged 12-17 in 2011, females were more likely than males to have past year MDE with severe impairment (8.3 vs. 3.2 percent). Among youths in 2011 with past year MDE, 19.9% saw or talked to a health professional only, 2.6% used prescription medication only, and 13.6% received treatment from both sources for depression in the past year. In 2011, 43.5% of youths with past year MDE with severe impairment received treatment for depression. Among youths, past year mental health service utilization was 8.8% for blacks and 16.2% for whites. Objective: The primary objective of this research is to assess the factors associated with mental health treatment disparities among youths aged 12-17. Data and methods: The data for this research are taken from 2011 National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH) for youth age 12-17. Several weighted logistic regression models were estimated to assess factors associated with receiving of mental health treatment among youths, who had MDE in past year with severe impairment. Results and Conclusion: Weighted logistic regression results suggest that among youths, blacks are about 0.40% [OR: 0.61; 95% CI: 0.58-0.78] significantly (p<0.001) less likely to receive mental health treatment compared to whites after controlling for the effect of socio-economic and demographic factors. Untreated mental illness disrupts our daily lives and allows youths to be involved in fighting and killing innocents.