Use of and Barriers to Mental Health Services for Youth with Physical-Mental Multimorbidity: A Nationally Representative Study.

Evidence suggests that 10-30% of youth have co-occurring physical and mental or neurodevelopmental disorders (multimorbidity) and that up to 40% of youth with multimorbidity that require mental health services report unmet mental health care needs.

Data come from the 2019 Canadian Health Survey on Children and Youth (youth aged 5-17 years).

Overall, 66.1% of youth in the sample perceived a need for or used services related to focusing/controlling behaviors, mental health, or learning difficulties; of these, 39.5% experienced barriers to accessing services.