Teachers’ Ability to Recognize Students with Anxious and Depressive Symptoms: A Systematic Review

Abstract

Onset of mental disorders sharply increases during adolescence. Since young people are reluctant to seek help for their mental health problems, they may need the help of adults around them for seeking appropriate help. Teachers may be a good candidate of the adults encouraging young people seek appropriate help, considering that young people spend most of their time in schools. The aim of this study is to conduct a systematic review of studies investigating teachers’ ability to recognize students with anxious and/or depressive symptoms. We included studies which report concordance between students’ mental health problems recognized by teachers and those identified using interviews and/or self-report questionnaires. We searched PubMed, ERIC, CINAHL, PsycInfo, Web of Science, CiNii and ICHUSHI, and identified 13,442 studies in the initial search of databases; 8 studies out of them met the inclusion criteria. Teachers recognized anxious and depressive symptoms in 38–75 and 19–41％, respectively, of students identified being with the symptoms according to interviews and/or questionnaires. Mental health education of teachers may need to be well focused on anxiety and anxiety disorders, not only on depression.