Adolescent boys in Canterbury are being labelled as the forgotten victims of the earthquakes.

Five years on, the ramifications of the quakes and the destruction they caused are still being realised across the region. One demographic struggling is young men aged around 15-19, and anti-violence advocacy group Aviva has seen a rise in violent acts by adolescent boys in the region, against both their parents and partners.

Aviva coordinator Carole Brown says most of those young men were around 13-years-old when the quakes hit.

"Parents were preoccupied with surviving, living in incredibly bad conditions, overcrowding. There was a lot of alcohol and drug use," Brown said.

"I think things went a bit haywire there for a while and the children really were left behind."

"Some of them have lost their friends, they've moved into different areas and they need somebody to blame."

Aviva operations manager Elaine Lucie says this wave of anger and frustration from young people may not be the last.

"The levels of frustration can come in cycles, and then the impacts and the consequences for younger people seem to come in cycles as well, at different stages of their development."

"Some people are still living with the enduring consequences of the earthquake."

Psychologist Sara Chatwin agrees, stating those men who were adolescents at the time of the quakes are now being forgotten.

"They're no longer children so people are not necessarily focusing on them, but they're not adult enough to know how to deal with these kinds of hardships and all the stresses and strains," Chatwin notes.

CDHB figures from last year revealed more people are presenting to the emergency department in Christchurch as a result of mental health issues - an increase of 100 per cent since the February 2011 earthquake.

In the past three years, the amount of people showing up to the emergency department with mental health related issues has doubled.

A hospital spokesperson said in September last year the general feeling amongst staff was that things couldn't carry on at the same level without extra support.