PhD defence Diana Eijgermans

About 15-20% of the children in Western countries suffer from emotional and/or behavioural problems. However, only half of these children do receive care. To get insight into which children do and do not receive care, it is essential to identify the determinants of mental health care use. This thesis focusses on the determinants of children’s and adolescents’ mental health care use. Determinants were studied on the individual level, e.g. sex, migrant origin and mental health problems, and on the contextual level, e.g. neighbourhood characteristics and screening for mental health problems. The thesis consists of two systematic reviews on these determinants. Furthermore, it contains four original studies, using the data of the Generation R Study (www.generationr.nl).