Young people's difficulty in talking to others about mental health problems: An analysis of time trends in Switzerland

•The prevalence of some mental health problems have increased in recent decades.•This change might reflect an actual worsening of the population's mental health.•However, it might also be due to changes in the reporting of mental health problems.•We found that the willingness to talk about such problems has increased until 2002.

The article aimed to analyse time trends regarding young people's willingness to talk about mental health problems. Data on 16,774 participants (16–20-year olds) of the ‘Swiss Multicentre Adolescent Survey on Health’ (SMASH) were analysed. The survey was conducted in 1992/93 and in 2002. Logistic regression analyses were conducted to identify predictors associated with the self-reported willingness of youth to talk about mental health problems with adults (other than parents), friends or no one. Socio-demographic characteristics were used as covariates. These analyses were first carried out for the total sample and, in a second step, stratified by suicidality of the participants. The percentage of participants who would talk about mental health problems with adults or friends increased between 1992/93 and 2002, while the percentage of those who would not talk about such problems decreased. This pattern was confirmed in the stratified analyses (i.e., for suicidal and non-suicidal individuals). Hence, Swiss youth seem to have less difficulty in talking with others about mental health problems than previous cohorts. This trend towards increased disclosure may have implications for claims that the prevalence of mental health problems has increased in recent decades.