Mental health: children and young people

Available data for Scotland’s children and young people is accessible as part of the national (Scotland) mental health profile on the ScotPHO profiles app. More localised data should become available in future years as part of the new Health and Wellbeing Census for Scottish children and young people. 

In 2023, the Royal College of Psychiatrists published their report Infant and early childhood mental health: the case for action (1969kB). The report outlines the research base and policy context for implementing mental health intervention during the early years.

In 2024, Public Health Scotland published a Self-harm in children and young people evidence and gap map. The map uses the mental health indicators categories (outlined below) to present review-level evidence within the area of children and young people’s self-harm, for use within public health policy, practice, and research development.

A number of surveys have been conducted to investigate children and young people’s mental health in Scotland:

• The Health Behaviour in School-aged Children (HBSC) survey is a cross-national survey that includes questions relating to mental health. It is conducted every four years, with the most recent survey being 2021/22. A report (3.6MB) focused on adolescent mental health and wellbeing outlining survey results from 2021/22 was published in 2023. Several relevant reports have been produced with HBSC data relating to mental health and links to some of these reports are provided in the Key references and evidence section.
• The Scottish Schools Adolescent Lifestyle and Substance Use Survey (SALSUS) included questions on mental health and factors relating to mental health. The final SALSUS ran in 2018, and has been replaced by a new Health and Wellbeing Census. The first Health and Wellbeing Census took place during the 2021/22 academic year, and 16 local authorities took part.
• In 2020, the study Generation Scotland ran the first and second TeenCovidLife Survey, to understand young people’s (aged 12-17 years) experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic in Scotland. The first survey took place during lockdown and the second assessed how young people coped after the first lockdown measures began to ease. The second survey found that almost a fifth (19%) of young people reported feeling stressed about COVID-19 all or most of the time, and a fifth (20%) reported feeling lonely most or all of the time.
• In 2004, ONS conducted a survey of Mental Health of Children and Young People (1.8MB) in Great Britain (repeating a similar survey carried out in 1999). Both surveys focused on the extent of clinically diagnosed emotional and behavioural mental health problems among 5–15-year-olds. In 2008, a follow-up report was published by ONS, Three years on: a summary of the development and emotional well-being of children and young people.

Children and young people’s mental health indicators

Building on NHS Health Scotland’s work to develop a core set of national indicators for adult mental health in 2007, the Scottish Government commissioned the development of a set of mental health indicators for children and young people in Scotland. These indicators were finalised in 2011.

An updated set of mental health indicators for children and young people were published in March 2022. Indicators are grouped by mental health outcomes, including mental wellbeing and mental health problems, and determinants of mental health outcomes, including individual, family and friends, learning environment, community, and structural domains (see figure below). Further information about the updated mental health indicators for children and young people can be found on the Public Health Scotland Children and Young People Mental Health Indicator pages.

Figure title: The framework used to organise children and young people’s mental health indicators. Source: https://publichealthscotland.scot/media/12206/children-and-young-people-mental-health-indicator-set.pdf.