Youth Mental Health

Research Focus

Perron Institute’s Youth Mental Health team led by Associate Professor Jennifer Rodger, Professor Anthony Akkari and Professor Sean Hood, has three key priorities:

1. Engaging with youth community members with a lived experience of mental health difficulties. By engaging with youth community members, the team aims to better understand the experiences of young people when it comes to mental health education, living with poor mental health, seeking treatment and difficulties that may arise around choosing from treatment options.
2. Engaging with primary mental healthcare providers. By engaging with healthcare providers such as GPs, and specialist providers, like paediatric psychiatrists, ensures a thorough understanding of the existing mental health treatment framework. This collaborative approach helps identify gaps in care, improve communication between patients and providers, and develop tailored interventions that are more likely to be effective and accepted by both youth and healthcare professionals. By incorporating diverse perspectives and expertise, the team can design and implement more comprehensive care strategies that address the unique needs of young people. Ultimately, this effort aims to enhance the quality of mental health services, reduce barriers to accessing care, and promote better long-term outcomes for youth experiencing mental health challenges.
3. Changing the landscape of mental health treatments available to youth. The team aims to provide more treatment options and to better understand non-pharmacological interventions for various mental health conditions including depression. The team specifically investigates the applicability, safety, and efficacy of non-invasive brain stimulation treatments such as Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS) in youth.
4. Identifying a pathway towards personalised mental healthcare in youth. Through the assessment of neurological changes and pharmacogenetic (PGx) testing prior to treatment prescription, the team aims to improve the often long and tedious trial-and-error pathway to treatment prescription. By developing these personalised approaches, it will be possible to drastically cut the costs and time associated with the provision of care to youth in WA.

This research will raise awareness of treatment personalisation steps and different treatment options that are available, safe, and efficacious for use in youth with mental health conditions.