Emotional distress and mental health service use among urban homeless adolescents.

The Expanded Behavioral Model for Vulnerable Populations was used to examine the predisposing, enabling, and need factors associated with mental health service use in a homeless adolescent sample (N = 688). Among all youth, 32% perceived a need for help with mental health problems and 15% met Brief-Symptom Inventory (BSI) criteria for emotional distress. The rate of mental health service use in our sample was 32%.