Global prevalence of unmet need for mental health care among adolescents: A systematic review and meta-analysis

Abstract

Purpose: Globally mental disorders affect a large number of adolescents. The unmet need for health care of mental health problems is common among adolescents. The aim of this systematic review and meta-analysis was to estimate the global prevalence of unmet needs of mental health care among adolescents. Methods: PubMed, Web of Sciences and Scopus, were searched by June 2018 using a pre-designed search strategy. The summary measure was the prevalence of unmet need for mental health care. The inverse variance method was used in meta-analysis, and the results were reported using the random-effects model at a 95 confidence interval (CI). Results: Out of 30,154 retrieved studies, 15 cross-sectional studies met the eligibility criteria and included in the meta-analysis. The included studies involved 51,309 participants, which 34,476 of them required the mental health care services. The overall pooled prevalence of unmet need for mental health care was 54.0 (95 CI: 41.0, 67.0; I2 = 99.9). Prevalence among adolescents with any mental disorder, general population of adolescents, and high-risk adolescents were 58.1 (46.8, 69.5), 51.4 (30.2, 72.7), and 31.0 (29.0, 33.0) respectively. Conclusion: Based on the results of this systematic review a considerable proportion of adolescents with mental health problems, have not received the required mental health care