“I always knew that I had this really bad feeling but I just thought that was normal,” Sam Tickle says. “I’d pull up in the bus to school and I just thought everyone got this disgusting feeling inside of you – the panic, basically.”
It wasn’t until 2021 when Tickle was diagnosed with anxiety and depression in year 11 that he understood he was living with a mental health disorder. “Anxiety in particular is something I’ve been suffering all my life, I just didn’t know I had it.”
Almost two in five Australians aged between 16 and 24 have experienced a mental disorder within the last 12 months, according to new data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics.
The National Study of Mental Health and Wellbeing, released on Thursday, is based on the responses of nearly 16,000 Australians aged between 16 and 85. It assesses three groups of mental disorders: anxiety, affective and substance use disorders.
Mental disorders experienced at any point in life as well as those experienced within 12 months of completing the survey between December 2020 and October 2022 were measured using a World Health Organization diagnostic tool.
The study found more than two out of every five Australians have experienced a mental disorder in their life. Anxiety disorders were the most common affecting 28.8%, while 16.0% had experienced an an affective disorder such as a depressive episode, and 19.6% a substance use disorder.
Dr Ruth Vine, the deputy chief medical officer for mental health in the Department of Health and Aged Care, said the last time the survey was conducted in 2007 there was similar prevalence of anxiety and mood disorders among the general population. But two cohorts who had significantly increased rates of mental disorders were young people and LGBTQI+ Australians.
Young people experienced the highest prevalence of disorder across all age groups, Vine said. Of those aged 16 to 24, 38.8% had experienced a mental disorder within the last 12 months, including almost half of females (45.5%) compared with a third of males (32.4%), with anxiety disorders the most common at 31.8%.
In the 2007 survey 26.4% of those aged 16 to 24 had experienced symptoms of a mental disorder in the past 12 months.
Well over half of people (58.7%) who described their sexual orientation as gay, lesbian or bisexual had experienced a mental disorder within the years of the 2020-22 survey compared with nearly one in five (19.9%) among people who described their sexual orientation as heterosexual.
There was also higher likelihood of younger people reporting self-harm and suicidal thoughts or behaviours, Vine said. The data showed women had higher rates of self-harm than men, with especially high rates among young women. More than one in four females aged 16 to 24 (27.9%) had self-harmed in their life, while 8.7% of young women in the same age group had self-harmed in the last 12 months, compared with 3.3% of men.
The study was conducted during the pandemic but was not designed to measure the impacts of Covid-19, Vine said.
Associate Prof Jill Newby, the head of clinical research at the Black Dog Institute, said increased rates of anxiety were occurring not only due to pressures from the pandemic but also financial pressures on households.
Prof Maree Teesson, the director of the Matilda Centre at the University of Sydney, said: “The thing that really jumps out at me is the 38.8% of young Australians aged 16 to 24 years experiencing a mental disorder in the previous 12 months.”
Teesson said the increasing rate of mental disorders among young people was an international phenomenon driven by three megatrends around the globe: concern about the climate emergency, the cost of living and the increased breakdown of social connection.
She said there was no evidence that the findings of the survey were a reflection of the way the questions were asked because findings were consistent with rates of suicide and self-harm.
“For me, they are indicators that this isn’t just people just asking and answering questions in a particular way. This is evidence of real distress in this cohort.”
In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. In the US, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is 1-800-273-8255. In the UK, Samaritans can be contacted on 116 123. Other international suicide helplines can be found at befrienders.org
