Children and young people: mental health and wellbeing

Data on children and young people’s mental health and wellbeing are available from the following sources:

Indicators on the ScotPHO profiles (national and local level data, largely from the children and young people’s mental health and the children and young people’s profiles):
- Deaths by probable suicide of 11-25 year olds.
- Children feeling pressure of school work
- Children reporting high life satisfaction
- Children’s behavioural and emotional difficulties
Surveys:
- Health Behaviour in School-Aged Children (HBSC) (last collected 2022)
- Scottish Schools Adolescent Lifestyle and Substance Use Survey (SALSUS), now replaced with the Health and Wellbeing Census
- TeenCovidLife Survey (2020 and 2021)
- COVID-19 Early Years Resilience and Impact Survey (CEYRIS): a survey conducted by Public Health Scotland to help understand the impact of COVID-19 and associated restrictions on mental health and wellbeing in the early years.

Public Health Scotland has developed a set of mental health indicators for children and young people. Data for the indicators were published on the ScotPHO online profiles tool in 2025, and will be regularly updated.

The Scottish Learning Disabilities Observatory publishes evidence about the causes of poor health and health inequalities experienced by people with intellectual and developmental disabilities.

Please note: If you require the most up-to-date data available, please check the data sources directly as new data may have been published since these data pages were last updated. Although we endeavour to ensure that the data pages are kept up-to-date, there may be a time lag between new data being published and the relevant ScotPHO web pages being updated.