Highlights from the Youth and Young Adults Mental/Emotional Health Survey, 2023 (Total # of responses collected = 95)

• Respondents Distribution: 48% parents, 52 % youth and young adults. Among the youth, 32 youths between 15-18, 17 young adults , 45 parents with children aged 15-21. Among the youths, 43% were male, 55% female, 2% preferring not to answer.
• Parents seem to underestimate or unaware of youths’ situations.  Parents tend to have a more optimistic assessment compared to youths. This may indicate that the parents are not well attuned to the youths’ actual feelings. The Top three Criteria of Good Mental Health chosen by the 2 groups were very different.
• Youths’ depression levels shown in the survey are concerning. There were 67% (26 out of 39) in the category of moderate, moderately severe and severe depression. Although no one responded had attempted suicide, but some reported they had suicidal thoughts. The majority of them didn’t share with anybody.
• Academic stress and concern for future study/career paths are the top 2 stressors among this age group.
• Financial stress: the statistically significant relationship between the household income and depression perceived by youths was much greater than parents.
• Friends are identified as the most important and frequent resource for youth and young adults to seek help
• Mental health and religion: There was no statistically significant relationship between religion and mental health
• Loneliness and mental health: Mental health had a significant relationship to feeling lonely/isolated.
• Resources identified as helpful: the top three topics that youth prefer were handling emotions, getting to know oneself, and a tie between parent-children relationship and relaxation practices.  For Young adults, the three top topics were getting to know oneself and facing adversities, and handling emotions. As for parents, the top three selections were facing adversities, parent-children relationship, and dealing with conflicts.