Editorial: Youth mental health issues affect us all

This makes last week's release of the Office for National Statistics' second national survey of the mental health of young people aged five to 16 particularly significant. In November 2004, the Institute of Psychiatry suggested that behavioural problems have doubled and that emotional problems are up 70 per cent over a 25-year-period. But the statistics office's new figures show that the number of young people with a clinically recognisable mental disorder has remained steady compared with the first national survey in 1999 - at 10 per cent.

So fears that there is virtually an epidemic of mental illness among young people may be overplaying the situation. But the fact that one in every 10 young people has a mental disorder is still shocking. It backs up research by youth mental health charity YoungMinds suggesting that in a typical secondary school of 1,000 pupils, there will be 100 in significant distress.