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Abstract
Objectives Public health trends are formed by political, economic, historical and cultural factors in society. The aim of this paper was to describe overall changes in mental health among adolescents and adults in a Norwegian population over the three last decades and discuss some potential explanations for these changes.
Design Repeated population-based health surveys to monitor decennial changes.
Setting Data from three cross-sectional surveys in 1995–1997, 2006–2008 and 2017–2019 in the population-based HUNT Study in Norway were used.
Participants The general population in a Norwegian county covering participants aged 13–79 years, ranging from 48 000 to 62 000 000 in each survey.
Main outcome measures Prevalence estimates of subjective anxiety and depression symptoms stratified by age and gender were assessed using the Hopkins Symptom Checklist-5 for adolescents and the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale for adults.
Results Adolescents’ and young adults’ mental distress increased sharply, especially between 2006–2008 and 2017–2019. However, depressive symptoms instead declined among adults aged 60 and over and anxiety symptoms remained largely unchanged in these groups.
Conclusions Our trend data from the HUNT Study in Norway indicate poorer mental health among adolescents and young adults that we suggest are related to relevant changes in young people’s living conditions and behaviour, including the increased influence of screen-based media.
- mental health
- public health
- epidemiology
- social medicine
Data availability statement
Data are available upon reasonable request. The data used is individual-based sensitive health data that can not be made available without violating the consent and Norwegian law. Data are available upon reasonable request to HUNT Research Centre.
This is an open access article distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited, appropriate credit is given, any changes made indicated, and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/.
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Data availability statement
Data are available upon reasonable request. The data used is individual-based sensitive health data that can not be made available without violating the consent and Norwegian law. Data are available upon reasonable request to HUNT Research Centre.
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Footnotes
Twitter @steinak
Contributors SK was the main author, responsible for the overall content as the guarantor for the study, and contributed to the conception and design of the work, acquisition of data, interpretation of data, drafting and revising it critically for important intellectual content. DAW contributed to interpretation of data, drafting and revising the work critically for important intellectual content. MAK contributed to the conception and design, revising the work critically for important intellectual content, interpretation of data and revising it critically for important intellectual content. VR contributed to the acquisition of data, analyses and interpretation of data and revising the work critically for important intellectual content. KK contributed to acquisition of data, interpretation of data, drafting and revising the work critically for important intellectual content. JMI contributed to acquisition of data, interpretation of data and revising the work critically for important intellectual content. OB contributed to acquisition of data, interpretation of data and revising the work critically for important intellectual content. JT contributed to interpretation of data, drafting and revising the work critically for important intellectual content. ERS contributed to the conception and design of the work, acquisition of data, analyses and interpretation of data, drafting and revising it critically for important intellectual content. All authors approved the final version to be published and are accountable for all aspects of the work. SK accepts full responsibility for the work and/or the conduct of the study, had access to the data and controlled the decision to publish. The corresponding author attests that all listed authors meet authorship criteria and that no others meeting criteria have been omitted.
Funding The HUNT study is publicly funded, and this paper have no external funding. The funding sources were not involved in the study design; analysis, and interpretation; writing of the report; or the decision to submit the article for publication. The researchers were independent from funders and all authors had full access to all of the data (including statistical reports and tables) in the study and take responsibility for the integrity of the data and the accuracy of the data analysis.
Competing interests None declared.
Patient and public involvement Patients and/or the public were not involved in the design, or conduct, or reporting, or dissemination plans of this research.
Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.
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