Duration between onset and time of obtaining initial treatment among people with anxiety and mood disorders: an international survey of members of mental health patient advocate groups

Background. Self-report data obtained from members of advocate groups for p atients with anxiety or mood disorders in 11 countries were used to study t ime to initial professional help-seeking after incident episodes. Method. Data were taken from 3516 self-administered questionnaires complete d by members of GAMIAN, an international consortium of mental health patien t advocate groups. Reports about age at onset and age at first seeking trea tment were obtained retrospectively. Results. Approximately 40 % of respondents reported that they sought treatm ent in the same year as the first onset of their disorder. The median delay in help-seeking was 8 years for the remainder of respondents. Synthetic co hort analysis suggests that delays have decreased in recent cohorts. Howeve r, time to initial help-seeking in all cohorts and all countries was found to be inversely related to age at onset. Conclusions. Although caution is needed in generalizing the results beyond members of patient advocate groups, the key patterns found here were also f ound in previous analyses of general population surveys carried out in the US and Canada. The critical and consistent finding in all these studies is that presumably curable adolescents with early-onset disorders are, in effe ct, ignored by the treatment system in these countries. Aggressive outreach and intervention among early-onset cases might prove to be a cost-effectiv e approach both to prevent the onset of secondary disorders and to improve success in treating primary disorders.