Rates of self-harm, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and chronic mental illness are soaring among young women in England aged 16 to 24, according to the biggest NHS survey of mental ill-health and treatment since 2007.
One in eight young women (12.6%) within that age group has PTSD, according to the study. That is three times the 4.2% rate found when the government-funded adult psychiatric morbidity survey was last conducted in 2007.
Researchers found a similarly worrying upward trend for the number of 16- to 24-year-old young women who self-harm – almost one in five. That has risen three-fold from 6.5% in 2000 to 11.7% in 2007 to the 19.7% found in 2014.
The same age group also has the highest rates of common mental disorders such as anxiety and depression of any group in the population. Overall 28.2% of young women told researchers they had some form of mental health condition, almost three times higher than the 10% of men from the same age group who did so.
Experts said that violence and abuse, including rape, as well as near-death experiences such as car crashes, and a loved one being killed or committing suicide were part of the explanation for the sharp rise in PTSD.
Although the definition of what constitutes trauma has remained unchanged since the survey was last conducted in 2007, the researchers said that their use for the latest survey of a new screening tool for PTSD, which is thought to be more accurate than its predecessor, may help explain the big jump in those with that disorder.
Sally McMahon, the lead researcher behind the survey, said: “We know that there are things like violence and abuse that are strongly associated with mental illness.”
But, she added: “This is also the age of social media ubiquity. This is the context that they [young women] are coming into and it warrants further research.”
She described 16-25 year olds as the “first cohort to come of age in social media ubiquity”.
She pinpointed mobile phone use as another potential driver if the alarming trends revealed in the report, published on Thursday by NHS Digital.
Self-harm, PTSD and mental illness soaring among young women in England – survey
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