Autism spectrum (ASD) and attention deficit/hyperactivity disorders (ADHD) share genetic, neurological, and behavioural features. However, related research in Asia is limited. We collected self-reported ASD and ADHD symptoms from 2186 Hong Kong adolescents and young adults aged 15-24 years, among whom, 1200 provided 1-year data on mental health-related outcomes. Comparative and network analyses were performed. Rating scale cutoff scores were used to divide participants into ASD, ADHD, comorbid, and control groups. The prevalence rates of ASD, ADHD, and comorbidities in Hong Kong were 13.3 %, 10.6 %, and 2.7 %, respectively. Compared with the control group, the comorbid group experienced more psychotic-like experiences (PLEs), the ASD group had poorer functioning, and the ADHD group had higher depression and anxiety symptoms and a lower quality of life after 1 year. The ability to switch attention, preference for routines and difficulty with change, and problems with organisation and planning were positively associated with depressive symptoms, forgetfulness and working memory issues with anxiety symptoms, and heightened sensory input and difficulties in sustaining attention and task completion with PLEs after 1 year. Our findings provide insight into support strategies to address the needs of young Asians to improving their well-being and long-term outcomes. 

Comorbidity of autism spectrum and attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder symptoms and their associations with 1-year mental health outcomes in adolescents and young adults

Abstract Background Despite the high prevalence of perinatal depression in China, the underutilization of mental health services remains. This study aimed at understanding the awareness, attitudes, and help-seeking intentions towards perinatal depression among women from different ethnic groups in western rural China. Methods A cross-sectional survey was conducted in a rural county of Yunnan Province in May 2022. Pregnant women and women within one year after childbirth were selected. Chi-square tests, Fisher's exact probability analyses and multiple logistic regression models were employed to investigate the determinants of women's help-seeking intentions concerning perinatal depression. Results A total of 1,217 women participated in the survey and 1,152 were included for analysis, including 464 Han women (40.28%), 498 Zhuang women (43.23%), and 190 from other ethnic minorities (16.49%). There were 12.67% of women detected with perinatal depressive symptoms, while 13.89% reporting they had experienced negative emotions for more than two weeks. Among women who had negative emotions history, just 4.38% had utilized mental health services. Over a quarter (26.91%)of women had never heard of depression, and nearly half were unawareof the available treatments (49.57%) or the facilities where they could seek treatment for depression (55.21%). The most participants (84.55%) reported that they would seek help for depression if needed. For those women who displayed a willingness to seek help, 75.36% prefer to seek support from interpersonal sources and 72.07% favored consulting professionals. Factors influencing help-seeking intentions differed across different ethnic groups. Han women with beliefs about the preventability and curability of depression ( OR =2.679, 95% CI : 1.329-5.401) were more likely to seek help from professionals. Zhuang women with stronger family support were associated with a greater likelihood of seeking help ( OR =2.660, 95% CI : 1.087-6.508). Other ethnic minority women with salaried employment reflected a lower potential to seek help ( OR =0.044, 95% CI : 0.005-0.403). Conclusion Women from different ethnic groups in western rural China had a low level of awareness of perinatal depression and mental health services. It is of great necessity to implement educational campaigns and supportive interventions aimed at addressing the social and psychological vulnerabilities of women and attending to the unique needs of ethnic females. 

Awareness, Attitudes, and Help-seeking Intention towards Perinatal Depression among Women from Different Ethnic Groups in Western Rural China

Academic stress is one of the most significant factors affecting adolescents’ mental health. Various methods of posting grades ranking may lead to students to perceive different levels of psychological stress, which in turn impacts the development of their mental health. Using Propensity Score Matching and Ordered Probit methods with educational quality monitoring data of 5405 eighth-grade students from 39 schools in District F, this paper examines the impact of posting grades ranking on students’ perceived academic stress in mathematics. It also explores the potential mechanisms and heterogeneous results of this impact, and concludes that: first, self-discrepancy induced by differences on posting grades ranking methods increases students’ perceived academic stress, with a higher degree of self- discrepancy leads to greater academic stress to some extent; second, academic stress induced by differences on posting grades ranking methods has a significant impact only on female students, county and rural students, and medium performance group students; third, self-discrepancy contributes to academic stress through the mediating pathway of academic emotions. This study can offer practical insights for recommendations for the implementation of the “Double-Reduction” policy. 

Exploring the transmission mechanism of self discrepancy on perceived academic stress–based on the methods of posting grades ranking

OBJECTIVE
This study investigated changes in mental health in Hong Kong over two years and examined the role of resilience and age in mitigating the negative effects of public health emergencies, particularly the COVID-19 pandemic.


METHODS
Complete data of interest from two telephone surveys conducted in 2020 (n = 1182) and 2021 (n = 1108) were analysed. Participants self-reported depressive and anxiety symptoms using the Patient Health Questionnaire 4-item version (PHQ), psychotic-like experiences (PLEs) using three items from the Prodromal Questionnaire Brief (PQB), and resilience using the Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale 2-item version (CD-RISC-2).


RESULTS
We observed an increase in the percentage of participants with high depressive and anxiety symptoms and PLEs from 1.6% to 6.5% between 2020 and 2021. The likelihood of having high depressive and anxiety symptoms or PLEs depended on resilience and age, with no significant between-year differences. Resilience and age interaction effects were significant when comparing the high PHQ-high PQB group to the low PHQ-low PQB group only in 2021 but not in 2020.


CONCLUSIONS
This study provides valuable insights into the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on mental health in Hong Kong, emphasising the age-dependent nature of resilience in mitigating negative effects. Future research should explore the mechanisms by which resilience promotes mental health and well-being and identify ways to enhance resilience among older individuals during public health crises.

Age-related differences in the impact of resilience on mental health outcomes during the COVID-19 pandemic in Hong Kong.

Background Culturally competent early mental health interventions for ethnic minorities (EMs) with no formal diagnoses are needed. Objectives To determine whether 8–12 weeks culturally adapted counselling (CAC) is better than waiting (waitlist (WL) group) to reduce depressive and anxiety symptoms and stress levels among EMs with elevated mental distress. Methods Hong Kong EMs with mild and above-mild mental distress were randomly assigned to CAC or WL in this pragmatic, randomised, WL-controlled trial. The CAC group received the intervention after randomisation and the WL group received the intervention after 8–12 weeks (T1). The prespecified primary outcomes were depressive and anxiety symptoms and stress levels measured by the Depression, Anxiety and Stress subscales of the Depression, Anxiety and Stress Scale (DASS-D, DASS-A and DASS-S, respectively) at postintervention (T1, 8–12 weeks). Findings A total of 120 participants were randomly assigned to either CAC (n=60) or WL (n=60), of whom 110 provided primary outcome data. At T1, CAC led to significantly lower depressive and anxiety symptom severity and stress levels compared with waiting, with unstandardised regression coefficients of −8.91 DASS-D points (95% CI −12.57 to −5.25; d=−0.90),–6.33 DASS-A points (95% CI −9.81 to −2.86; d=−0.68) and −8.60 DASS-S points (95% CI −12.14 to −5.06; d=−0.90). Conclusions CAC clinically outperformed WL for mild and above-mild levels of mental distress in EMs. Clinical implications Making CAC routinely available for EMs in community settings can reduce healthcare burden. Trial registration number NCT04811170.

Effects of a culturally adapted counselling service for low-income ethnic minorities experiencing mental distress: a pragmatic randomised clinical trial

BACKGROUND
Ethnic minorities (EMs) typically underutilise mental health services (EMs) with issues that are not shared by the local population. Understanding the underlying perceived factors could help reduce their mental health disparities.


AIMS
This is a qualitative study aiming to examine the barriers that prevent EMs from seeking mental health services in Hong Kong.


METHODS
Six semistructured focus groups with 31 EMs who resided in Hong Kong were conducted from May 31 to June 26, 2021. The outcome measures were the themes and subthemes of perspectives on mental health service use.


RESULTS
Among 31 adults (20 [64.5%] women, 11 [35.5%] men; 17 [54.8%] aged 25-39 years) who participated, most participants self-identified as Indian (13 [41.95]) or Pakistani (10 [32.3]). There were 16 individuals (51.6%) who reported severe or higher levels of anxiety or depressive symptoms, while 12 individuals (38.7%) reported moderate levels. Three emerging themes identified for the barriers to help-seeking for psychiatric intervention were (1) preexisting problems, (2) psychaitric service lacks cultural sensitivity and (3) personal or family limitation, while that for the recommendations to improve help-seeking had six themes: (1) improve cultural sensitivity, (2) make EM mental health practitioners available, (3) improve professional conduct, (4) improve on-site support, (5) improve financial support and (6) improve mental health promotion in schools.


CONCLUSION
This study found that EMs in Hong Kong experience double stigma, which keeps them away from seeking professional mental health care. There were also disparities in the use of mental health services by ethnicity. The study also made recommendations for promoting EM help-seeking at the individual, governmental and community levels.

Double stigma in mental health service use: Experience from ethnic minorities in Hong Kong.

Background: Self-discrepancy is associated with poorer mental health, yet its mechanism is understudied. A recent study found that resilience plays a moderating role in the relationship between self-discrepancy and depressive symptoms in adults. The current study investigated whether there were any similar relationships among young people aged 15 to 24 years. Methods: As part of the ongoing Hong Kong Epidemiological Study of Mental Health (HK-YES) project, the current study analysed data from 1,144 participants who provided complete data on ideal-actual selfdiscrepancy, psychiatric conditions, resilience level and recent stressful life events (SLEs). Results: Ideal-actual self-discrepancies were associated with increased depressive and anxiety symptoms, as well as odds of 12-month major depressive episodes (MDEs) and generalised anxiety disorder (GAD). All these associations became nonsignificant after adjusting for resilience. Separate models found resilience mediating rather than moderating the relationship. According to four-way decomposition, the pure indirect effect explained most of the total effects of self-discrepancy on mental health conditions. The mediation effects on symptom severity were recently revealed to be more prominent among individuals with substantial exposure to SLE. Conclusions: Resilience functions mainly as a mediator in the relationship between self-discrepancy and mental health conditions, and its effect is weakened by the exposure of SLEs. Important implications are discussed regarding the use of resilience-focused interventions and the consideration of recent adversity.

Unpacking the mediating role of resilience in the relationship between ideal-actual self-discrepancy, stressful life events, depression and anxiety: Results from 1,144 young people in an epidemiological study in Hong Kong

Handle everyday research tasks with reliable, citation-backed results

Your personal Research Agent to handle research tasks with citation-backed results

Popular Tasks used by Researchers

How can I help with your research?

Meet SciSpace

Get more enhanced response by uploading the PDFs you want me to reference.

No relevant PDFs in your library

SciSpace is the AI research assistant for academics. Run systematic literature reviews on 280M+ papers, and write papers with cited sources. Trusted by 1M+ students, PhDs & researchers.

SciSpace | AI for Research

Analyze PDFs

Code & Manuscripts

Funding & Grants

Literature & Patents

Medical & Clinical Data

Systematic Review

Visualize & Present

Web & Data

Build a Google Scholar-like website for your research.

Build a website

Create charts and images for your research

Create a Chart

Write a paper for submission to a journal

Draft a manuscript

Patent Search

Design eye-catching scientific posters in minutes.

Scientific Poster Generation

Systematic Literature Review

One task is running at the moment. Your messages will be shown right after.

Drag and drop or click here to browse

Loved by <highlight>1 million+</highlight> researchers

Extract a list of specific topics and their sources from unstructured text

Topics

Compare and analyze relevant papers that matches with your search

Papers

Get insights from PDFs and bookmarked papers from your library

My library

Recent searches

Try searching for:

Catch AI-generated content in scholarly and non-scholarly content

{ai} Detector

Ai Writer

Get PDF Summaries, highlighted text explanations 

Chat with PDF

Effortlessly create in-text citations and bibliographies in APA and 2,500 other formats

Citation generator

Get explanations, summaries, and answers on academic papers

Ease up your research workflow with {scispace}'s cohort of exciting AI tools

Elevate your academic writing skills and convey your ideas the way you want

Paraphraser

Explore our range of reading and writing tools

Your file is being prepared and should be ready in a few minutes. If it's a large file, it might take a bit longer. You can close this window, and we'll email you the file when it's done.

You have reached a maximum limit of <strong>{limit}</strong> columns in the table. Remove at least <strong>1</strong> column to add or create another one.

Chan Kit Wa Sherry

Author Tools

Chat about Author

Papers

Double stigma in mental health service use: Experience from ethnic minorities in Hong Kong.

Unpacking the mediating role of resilience in the relationship between ideal-actual self-discrepancy, stressful life events, depression and anxiety: Results from 1,144 young people in an epidemiological study in Hong Kong