Pandemic anxiety, depression and S

urveys around the world find that many teenagers have been struggling to cope during the coronavirus pandemic. Parents have suffered burnout too. Forebodings about unemployment and intergenerational resentment are widely felt.

More than half of the undergraduate students responding to a 21-country survey published in March 2021 said that their mental health had suffered as a result of COVID-19. The survey gathered responses from nearly 17,000 students aged 18–21 in October and November of 2020.1

A few months later, findings of a metaanalysis of 29 studies that included more than 80,000 children in Asia, Europe, the Middle East and North, Central and South America confirmed that the prevalence of depression and anxiety symptoms during COVID-19 had doubled compared with prepandemic estimates. The study2, published in JAMA Pediatrics in August 2021 showed these figures were higher when collected later in the pandemic, in older adolescents, and in girls.

46% of 977 parents of American teens report worsening mental health conditions since the start of the pandemic. Researchers suggest that one reason is that just as young people are seeking independence from their families, COVID-19 precautions have kept them at home. They say depression during the pandemic is associated with the teenagers' own fears and uncertainties as well as high levels of parental stress. Parental stress, depression, and anxiety also increased with the heightened restrictions in the UK, according to a report from Oxford University.

Ø Increased anxiety/worry 36% of teenage girls’ parents compared to 19% of boys’

Ø Increased depression/sadness 31% compared to 18% of boys’

Sources

• webmd.com/lung/news/20210315/pandemic-has-harmed-mental-health-of-teens#1

• ox.ac.uk/news/2021-01-19-parental-mental-health-worsens-under-new-national-covid-19-restrictions

An OECD survey3 conducted across 48 countries explored the ways in which the pandemic is shaping the mental health, expectations and decisions of international students. It found youth were far more worried about mental health, income, and employment than about their physical health or education (see Figure 1). Nevertheless, the UN estimates4 that 1.5 billion youth have been out of school and over a third had no access to remote learning. The OECD notes that even before the Covid crisis, youth aged 15–29 were 2.5 times more likely to be unemployed than people aged 25–64.