Kids Stress
COVID Is Stressing Kids Out Helping Kids Cope With Stress by Ned Ketyer, MD Originally Published on www.ThePediaBlog.com
COVID Is Stressing Kids Out Generalized Anxiety is the most common mental health condition diagnosed by pediatric providers, affecting approximately 12% of children worldwide. Depression is second. In normal times, returning to school after a fun and relaxing summer can be expected to exacerbate anxiety and depression in children. The pandemic has only added fuel to the fire, helping to produce a “global crisis” of mental health problems in children and teenagers, according to a new study in JAMA Pediatrics.
The study’s authors think they know why so many kids are stressed. (Hint: it’s not because they are being asked to wear face masks in school): The COVID-19 pandemic, and its associated restrictions and consequences appear to have taken a considerable toll on youth and their psychological well-being. Loss of peer interactions, social isolation, and reduced contact with buffering supports (eg, teachers, coaches) may have precipitated these increases. In addition, schools are often a primary location for receiving psychological services, with 80% of children relying on schoolbased services to address their mental health needs. For many children, these services were rendered unavailable owing to school closures. Ken Downey Jr. discovered additional factors leading to the spoke in mental health symptoms over the last year-and-a-half: According to the AAP, more than 40,000 children in the United States have lost a parent to COVID-19, the trauma of which is often compounded by the loss of material stability and economic hardship and has been associated with poor educational and mental health. That’s not all: Families living in poverty and in under-resourced communities may be at an additional risk, the AAP noted. Children who are refugees and seeking asylum, children with special health care needs and children on welfare and in the juvenile justice system are also at a higher risk.
Tami D. Benton, MD and colleagues assess the sobering data contained in the study: Prior to COVID-19, global estimates for depression and anxiety, 2 of the most common mental health conditions of childhood, were estimated to be 8.5% for depression and 11.6% for anxiety. The meta-analysis by Racine and colleagues suggests significantly higher rates for clinically significant depression (23.8%) and anxiety (19%) for children and adolescents, a more than 2-fold increase in prevalence rates compared with those reported prior to the pandemic.
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AHN Pediatrics • Winter 2021 • www.ahnpediatrics.org
Many families have had a difficult time coping with COVID-19: “We were already experiencing a mental health crisis in our children and teens before the pandemic,” AAP President Lee Savio Beers, MD, FAAP, said in a statement. “Families have been under considerably more stress over the past year and a half, only making this crisis worse.” The stress has been enormous for adults with pre-existing mental health conditions: The AAP said parents may also be suffering from mental health challenges. It recommends that during every office
