What are the potential risk factors for mental health problems?

Best practice guidelines for mental health promotion programs: Children & Youth

A broad range of potential risk factors can affect the development of mental health problems and mental illness. As with potential protective factors, some of these factors relate to a particular stage of the lifespan (most notably childhood) while others have an impact across the lifespan (e.g., life events such as sexual or emotional abuse with their long-term physical and mental impact, and socio-economic disadvantage). The strength of association and level of evidence for causation varies among the factors listed.

On this page:

• Individual
• Family
• School
• Life events and situations
• Community and culture

Individual

• prenatal brain damage
• premature birth
• birth injury
• low birth weight, birth complications
• physical or intellectual disability
• poor health in infancy
• insecure attachment in infant or child
• low intelligence
• difficult temperament
• chronic illness
• poor social skills
• low self-esteem
• alienation
• impulsivity

Family

• having a teenage mother or a single parent
• absence of father in childhood
• large family
• antisocial role models in childhood
• family violence or disharmony
• marital discord in parents
• poor supervision or monitoring
• neglect in childhood
• low parental involvement in child’s activities
• long-term parental unemployment
• criminality in parent
• parental substance misuse
• parental mental disorder
• harsh or inconsistent discipline style
• social isolation
• experiences of rejection
• lack of warmth and affection

School

• bullying
• peer rejection
• poor attachment to school
• inadequate behaviour management
• deviant peer group
• failure at school

Life events and situations

• physical, sexual or emotional abuse
• changing schools frequently
• divorce and family break-up
• death of family member
• physical illness or disability
• unemployment
• homelessness
• incarceration
• poverty or economic insecurity
• job insecurity
• unsatisfactory workplace relationships
• workplace accident or injury
• caring for someone with an illness or disability
• living in a nursing home
• war or natural disasters

Community and culture

• socio-economic disadvantage
• social or cultural discrimination
• isolation
• neighbourhood violence or crime
• deviant peer group
• high population density and poor housing conditions
• lack of support services, including transport, shopping and recreational facilities

Reference

Adapted from Commonwealth Department of Health and Aged Care. (2000). Promotion, Prevention and Early Intervention for Mental Health—A Monograph. Canberra, Australia: Author.

 

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