Almudena Trucharte Martínez
Associate Professor at Camilo José Cela University, researcher at the HM Hospitales Health Research Institute (Madrid) and collaborating researcher in the Department of Personality, Evaluation and Clinical Psychology at the Complutense University of Madrid
This is a recent and innovative study conducted in Norway with a sample of approximately 3.7 million individuals that addresses an issue of global significance: the mental health of our young adult population. Globally, there is talk of a marked trend toward higher levels of anxiety and depression in this group, but is this trend real? Is the mental health of our population deteriorating due to social, family, or technological changes?
In this study, the authors follow individuals aged 10 to 46 over a 15-year period (2010–2024), include a cohort of adults (aged 31–46) as a comparative reference group, and analyze trends among men and women throughout the entire period, as well as before and after the pandemic. The main methodological strength is that the Norwegian coding system in primary care allows for distinguishing between visits recorded as symptoms (e.g., feeling anxious) and visits recorded as diagnosed disorders (e.g., anxiety disorder), which makes it possible to compare these two trajectories.
The study’s main finding is a clear divergence: consultations for anxiety symptoms increased by 286% (compared to 46% for anxiety disorder), and consultations for depressive symptoms increased by 147%, while depressive disorder remained stable and even declined slightly (4%). The sharpest increases were observed among women aged 16–20 for anxiety symptoms (+475%) and among adults aged 21–46 for depressive symptoms, particularly after 2020. It is important to note that the post-pandemic surge is not widespread: it is specifically evident in depressive symptoms among young adults, while diagnosed disorders remain stable or even decline.
What is happening? The study suggests that the increase may reflect a shift in thresholds for seeking help and in clinical coding practices rather than an actual deterioration in psychological well-being, although an increase in mental health symptoms cannot be ruled out. The implications are significant: it may be necessary to rethink diagnostic criteria and pathways in primary care and to strengthen psychoeducation programs and brief digital psychological interventions as a more appropriate response to a growing volume of symptomatic demand that does not necessarily require a traditional clinical pathway.
As limitations, the authors correctly point out that they lack measures of symptom severity and information on specialized care; therefore, it would be desirable to supplement this type of analysis with self-reported questionnaires that provide information on the severity and type of symptoms in the young adult population.