Factors associated with positive mental health in young adults with a neurodevelopmental disorder
Section snippets
What this paper adds
Positive dimension of mental health has gained less attention in previous research on individuals with neurodevelopmental disorders. However, understanding of factors associated with mental well-being in this target group is crucial for planning effective interventions for these individuals. This study showed that the level of mental well-being is relatively low among individuals with neurodevelopmental disorders. Besides health and functional capacity, social relations play an important role
Study design and procedures
The study was conducted in the context of the My Way project that aimed at developing and implementing a neuropsychiatric rehabilitation programme by the Finnish Social Insurance Institution. The programme was targeted at young adults aged 18–35 years with a diagnosis of Asperger’s syndrome (AS) (F84.5 according to the ICD-10 classification) and/or ADHD/ADD (F90) and/or other pervasive developmental disorder (F84.8 and F84.9). The 12 month programme included both individual and group sessions
Results
Of the 171 study participants, 64 % were men and 36 % women, aged 18–35 years (mean age 25 years, SD 4.35). About one third of the study participants were students (31 %), 13 per cent were working full or part time and more than half (56 %) were not in education or employment. Most of the participants (84 %) were single and about half of them (47 %) were living alone. Twenty seven per cent of the participants were still living with the parents (Table 1).
Half of the study participants (50 %) had
Discussion
This study aimed to find determinants of positive mental health among young adults with a neurodevelopmental disorder. Firstly, the mean score for SWEMWBS (20.98) was relatively low in the study sample in comparison with general or clinical populations. In general populations, the mean score was 23.7 for males and 23.2 for females over 16 years in a population-based study from England (Ng Fat et al., 2017). In clinical settings, among individuals with psychiatric disorders, the scores have
Conclusion
Young adults with ASD and/or ADHD/ADD can be seen as a group of young adults with specific challenges in social participation as well as in becoming established in the labour market and in further education. Failures in these developmental tasks may result in poor mental wellbeing. The aim of the present study was to investigate the factors associated with positive mental health among young adults with a neurodevelopmental disorder. The study showed that the level of positive mental health is
Funding
None.
Author contributions
The study was conducted within the My Way project by the Social Insurance Institution of Finland. All authors (KA-S, RL and AT-H) contributed to the study design and methodology, supervised by AT-H. KA-S collected the data with the assistance of programme providers, conducted the statistical analysis, wrote the first draft and led the writing process. RL and AT-H provided critical revisions to the manuscript and accepted the final version of the manuscript.
Declaration of Competing Interest
The authors report no declarations of interest.
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