During the past two decades, ”Alarming reports” on young people’s mental health have frequently been published in newspapers.  . These questions have gained great attention in the public debate, both in media and on the political agenda. In the 2008 Public Health government bill, it is pointed out that children and adolescents is one of the most important target groups and that mental health is one of the most prioritized areas within public health politics.

This report takes its beginning from an apparently general opinion, saying that children’s and young people’s mental health tends to deteriorate. In this report, the mediated picture of children’s and young people’s mental health over time is presented. Three operators in society are analyzed from their standpoints of children’s and adolescent’s mental health with respect to trends, socio demographic and regional differences, and also which sources are used in their argumentations. The three operators are the Government, authorities working with these questions, daily press and scientific research.

The material for the media analysis is a systematic review of articles in newspapers during the period 1988-2008 via two electronic databases. The official standpoint has been described using government documents. The material from the research area consists of peer- reviewed published articles, epidemiological studies, and so called ”grey literature”.

The result shows that the standpoint of the three different operators is remarkably consistent, but far from identical. The sources used are frequently quoted and tend to circulate among the operators. The result also shows that the groups experiencing the worst health are girls and young women. However, neither ethnicity nor regional differences are described. Also, the epidemiological data is very insufficient. As a whole, Swedish adolescent seem however experiencing a vital mental health, but stress and mental ill- health has become more frequent, especially among girls and young women. It is crucial to reflect over terms and expressions used in measurements which are being compared over a 20- year perspective. To which extent are they reflecting the same values and terms as two decades ago?

Neither the media nor the official actors can be accused of fabricating constructions, since their reports are more or less based on published research reports. Inversely, the official standpoint and the picture from media can also be assumed to be mirroring the things not being published.

The association between mental health problems and traditional bullying is well known,whereas the strength of the association in cyberbullying is less known. This study aimedto compare the association between mutually exclusive groups of bullying involvementand psychosomatic problems as measured by the PsychoSomatic Problems scale. Thesample comprised 3820 students (13–16 years old) in Sweden. The results indicate anassociation between bullying and psychosomatic problems, regardless of type of bullyinginvolvement. No statistically significant differences in psychosomatic problemswere found between cyberbullying and traditional bullying, either for victims or forbullies. The results do not confirm the hypothesis that the association between bullyingand mental health is stronger for cyberbullying than for traditional bullying. Anotherimportant finding is that cyberbullies seem as likely as cybervictims to be at risk formental health problems.

Aim: This study investigates the association between two types of social relations during leisure time (to parents and peers) and the frequency of alcohol use among Swedish adolescents, taking possible interaction effects into account.

Methods: The data were collected during the 1995–2005 time period by using a questionnaire handed out in the class room. The study includes about 10,000 Swedish adolescents aged 15–16 years.

Results: The results show that there are strong associations between the social relations adolescents have during leisure time (both to parents and peers) and the frequency of alcohol use. High levels of peer activity were associated with higher frequencies of alcohol use. Although the effects of relations with parents were modified by peer activity frequencies, high levels of parental monitoring were significantly associated with lower frequencies of alcohol use, regardless of the peer activity frequencies.

Conclusions: Parental monitoring is an efficient way to prevent or reduce adolescents’ alcohol use, although its importance may vary due to peer activity frequency.

Background: The purpose of this study was to analyse the connection between two types of social relations in school (to peers and to teachers) and psychosomatic health complaints among adolescents in school Year 9 in the Swedish compulsory school. In particular,              the focus is on the importance of students’ academic orientation as a possible modifier of the association between social relations and psychosomatic health complaints.

Methods: The data were collected during the 1995–2005 time period from approximately 10 000 Swedish adolescents in the age of 15–16 years by using a questionnaire that was handed out in the class room.

Results: There are strong associations between adolescents’ social relations in school (both to peers and to teachers) and psychosomatic health complaints. Worse relationships are connected to worse psychosomatic health. The health effects of teacher contacts                     were significantly modified by academic orientation; they were stronger for theoretically (i.e. those with better health) than for non-theoretically oriented students.

Conclusion: Interpreted from a social class perspective, the results may reflect that the theoretically oriented students to a higher degree strive to conform to the culture present in school making this group of students more sensitive for teacher relations                     manifested as recognitions, rewards or penalties. In order to promote social equity in health, efforts to improve social relations in school should not solely focus on the teacher–student relationships but also on the relationships between peers.

The aim of this study was to analyse the link between psychosocial factors in the neighbourhood and work environments, and psychosomatic health problems.

Methods   The data were collected in the survey “Life and Health ”, which was conducted in 2000 in six Swedish county councils. A total of 71,580 questionnaires were distributed to randomly selected individuals aged 18 –79. A total of 46,636 respondents completed the questionnaire. This gives a response rate of around 65%. For the purpose of this study only gainfully employed individuals aged 18 – 64 are included, which gives a total of 22,164 individuals: 11,247 (50.7%) women and 10,917 (49.3%) men. Two scales were used to measure the psychosocial environments in the neighbourhood and at work. The link between these scales and psychosomatic health problems was analysed by using multinomial logistic regression.

Results  The results show that both “Psychosocial Neighbourhood Environment” (PNE) and “Psychosocial Working Environment” (PWE), independently, are related to psychosomatic health problems. Hence, the health effects of social relations in the neighbourhood were not modified by the quality of social relations at work, or vice versa. The levels of psychosomatic health problems are highest for people experiencing a low degree of social solidarity in the neighbourhood and for those experiencing low degrees of supportive work relationships.

Objective

The objective was to investigate relationships between adolescent sleep disturbance and various worry themes.

Methods

Questionnaire data from 8 cross-sectional collections between 1988 and 2011 were used. The sample included more than 20,000 adolescents aged 15-16. Binary logistic regressions were used for the analyses.

Results

Sleep disturbance and female sex increased the odds of worrying about all themes. Sleep disturbance shared stronger associations with worry about financial security, accidents/illness, being bullied, and terrorist attacks (odds ratios, 2.65-3.35) compared with worry about environmental destruction or nuclear war (odds ratios, 1.73-2.11). No interactions between sleep and year of investigation were found.

Conclusions

Little is known about the association between adolescent worry and sleep, and about sleep disturbance and specific worry content. This study shows that the strength in the relationship between adolescent worry and sleep varies with worry themes. Knowledge of the worry content related to sleep may aid in targeting preventions and interventions.

The Civic Culture by Gabriel Almond and Sidney Verba is a path-breaking work within political science. Although The Civic Culture still provides inspiration for studies, new approaches to political culture have identified alternative citizen orientations that may be replacing the value orientations identified at the time. The more recent studies have examined specific attitudes such as political trust, party identification, and political efficacy or types of political subcultures such as critical citizens, stealth citizens or disenchanted citizens. These studies provide insights into the developments of specific attitudinal orientations, but do not discern the mix of political orientations among the population, which The Civic Culture suggests is central for democratic stability. The implications of these changes for the composition of political cultures are therefore still unknown. In this article, we, as suggested by The Civic Culture, examine the composition of political cultures to shed new light on the differences in political culture between old and new democracies. We use the fourth round of the European Social Survey to examine this question in 25 European democracies. The results suggest that there is a need to revise some of the main conclusions of The Civic Culture when it comes to the connection between political culture and democratic stability. Although civic citizens are widespread in old democracies, there is no single political culture sustaining a stable democracy. We also find considerable heterogeneity in the composition of the political cultures within old and new democracies alike, suggesting that there may be considerable variation in the cultural conditions for creating a stable democracy.

Objectives The authors investigated self-perceived psychosomatic health in young people (10–24 years of age) in Sweden and analysed different samples during the years 2005 and 2007–2010 via a community website.

Design Repeated cross-sectional surveys: (1) single question on a single day in 2005. (2) One specific question delivered on each of eight separate days in 2005. (3) The same eight questions delivered to smaller groups on the same day in 2007 and then again to randomly selected subjects in 2010.

Setting Validated questionnaires launched on the internet by a recognised Swedish community site. Study participants were invited to answer questions about their health with full anonymity as they logged into their personal area.

Participants 10–24-year-old children, adolescents and young adults.

Primary and secondary outcome measures Self-reported psychosomatic health in terms of sex and age over time.

Results A large number of responses were obtained (up to 140 000). The response rate for the single item on stress was 41%. A high percentage of young subjects responded that they felt stressed very often/often; the numbers were higher for women (47%) than for men (29%). Older teenaged women had more psychosomatic complaints than did men of similar ages; in contrast, among 10–12-year-old children, the percentage of psychosomatic complaints was similar for men and women. When comparing results obtained in 2010 with those obtained in 2007, young people of both sexes had a slightly better self-perceived health status in 2007.

Conclusions During the period 2005–2010 a high percentage of young people, particularly females, 16–18 years of age, had psychosomatic complaints and considered themselves as being often or very often stressed. These complaints were more pronounced in the older age groups. When directing questions to a large community, internet-based surveys appear to be valuable tools.

I föreliggande rapport redovisas data om alkohol- narkotika- och tobaksvanor bland niondeklassare i Värmland. Redovisningen baseras på material insamlat i forskningsprojektet Ung i Värmland.  Datainsamlingar har genomförts 1988, 1991, 1995, 1998, 2002, 2005 och 2008.

Resultaten från 2008 års undersökning visar :

• att cirka 30 procent av niondeklassarna druckit starköl, vin eller sprit minst en gång i månaden under läsåret.
• att 45 procent av pojkarna och 57 procent av flickorna någon gång varit berusade.
• att cirka en tredjedel av niondeklassarna druckit alkohol i någon form minst en gång i månaden under läsåret.
• att var fjärde pojke och 30 procent av flickorna minst en gång i månaden druckit alkohol motsvarande en halv halvflaska sprit eller en helflaska vin eller fyra burkar starköl eller sex burkar öl klass II ("folköl") eller fyra stora flaskor stark cider/alkoläsk vid ett och samma tillfälle.
• att sju procent av pojkarna och fem procent av flickorna i årskurs nio någon gång använt narkotika.
• att sju procent av pojkarna och 12 procent av flickorna röker dagligen/nästan dagligen.
• att 11 procent av pojkarna och två procent av flickorna snusar minst en dosa per vecka.

Med avseende på förändringar över tid visar resultaten att andelen icke konsumeter av starköl, vin och sprit är högre och andelen regelbundna alkoholkonsumenter år 2008 är lägre bland pojkar, men inte bland flickor, än när undersökningen startade 1988. Andelen icke konsumenter är år 2008 lägre och andelen regelbundna alkoholkonsumenter högre bland flickor än bland pojkar, till skillnad från 1988 då förhållandena var de motsatta.

PURPOSE:To elucidate the time trends in self-reported mental health complaints (internalizing problems) among school children in Sweden during a time characterized by economic downturns and upturns, with a focus on possible differences across grades and genders.

METHODS:The study uses nationwide and repeated cross-sectional data collected five times during 1985-2005 among students in Sweden in grades 5, 7, and 9. The number of participating students each year varied between 2,933 and 4,421. The attrition rates varied between 10% and 15% in the participating schools. Data were subjected to descriptive analysis and multinomial logistic regression using a composite measure of self-reported mental health complaints.

RESULTS:The study results show significantly higher rates of mental health complaints in 2005/2006 compared with 1985/1986 among older adolescents, in particular girls, whereas the rates are almost unchanged among younger boys and girls. Only among girls in grade 9 has there been a successively (linear) increase of mental health complaints across years of investigations.

CONCLUSIONS:The increasing rates of mental health complaints among older adolescents, in particular girls, are a cause for concern and a challenge for public health work. By showing discrepant time trends among younger and older adolescents, the results of the study nuance the predominant and unambiguous notions about continuously deteriorating mental health among children and adolescents in Sweden. To address hypotheses concerning the causes of the discrepant time trends, suggestions are made for comparative cross-country analyses based on data from Sweden and other European countries.