Introduction:

Mental health services are scarce within the school context that allow intersectoral integration to overcome the gap in mental health care in the child and adolescent population, being the school where mental health problems are mostly detected. Objective: to know the use of mental health services in the school environment in relation to mental disorders and subthreshold disorders.

Method:

The present secondary study is carried out from the "Study of Community Prevalence of Psychiatric Disorders and Utilization of Services of the Chilean Child-Youth Population". The sample was represented by subjects between 4 and 18 years old (N = 1556). Information on the use of mental health service was collected with a modified version of the Service Assessment Scale for Children and Adolescents (SACA). A logistic regression model was performed to analyze five areas of the use of services in the school environment, which were correlated with diagnoses of mental disorders and subthreshold anxiety, disruptive and depression disorder in the last year.

Results:

Schools face great challenges on how to provide effective mental health support for students, who present some type of mental disorder or subthreshold disorder.

Discusion:

Educational institutions need to be visualized as an entity that could meet the needs that are urgently noticed in attention, prevention and promotion of mental problems in the child and adolescent population, if it is linked more directly with health services.

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