PhD defence D.G.M. (Diana) Eijgermans

Dissertation in short:

About 15-20% of the children in Western countries suffer from emotional and/or behavioural problems. However, only half of these children do receive care. To get insight into which children do and do not receive care, it is essential to identify the determinants of mental health care use. This thesis contains two systematic reviews on determinants of children’s and adolescents’ mental health care use. In total, six determinants on the individual level and ten determinants on the contextual level with sufficient level of evidence were discovered. This thesis also contains four original studies, based on data of the Generation R Study. We found that having emotional and/or behavioural problems and a decreased quality of life were positively associated with mental health care use. Furthermore, boys and children with a Western background were more likely to use care compared to girls and children with a non-Western background at 9 years old, independent of their emotional and/or behavioural problems. Also, a high neighbourhood socioeconomic status and low sense of belonging to a neighbourhood were positively associated with mental health care use by children. Last, several sociodemographic and mental health characteristics were identified that were associated with various reasons for mental health care use. The most prevalent reason for care use was having behavioural problems. The findings of this thesis can be used by parents, teachers, health care professionals and policy makers to improve prevention and early intervention strategies and to improve the quality of care.