10.04.2023
In their extensive study, Canadian, Australian and Irish researchers were able to confirm what other scientists had already observed: emergency room visits for suicide attempts and suicidal thoughts increased among children and adolescents during the COVID-19 pandemic. They report on this in The Lancet Psychiatry.
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Prof. Dr. Sheri Madigan of the University of Calgary and the Alberta Children’s Hospital Research Institute in Alberta, Canada, and colleagues reviewed 42 studies that included data on emergency room visits before and during the COVID-19 pandemic affecting children and adolescents recorded at the age of 19.
In particular, the experts were interested in whether there were changes in visits to the emergency department for suicide attempts, self-harm, suicidal thoughts and mental health problems such as anxiety, depression and psychosis.
In total, they evaluated 11.1 million admissions of children and adolescents (average age 11.7 years) in the emergency departments in 18 countries. Girls and boys were roughly equally represented (on average 57.6% girls and 43.4% boys).
Their analyzes found that the risk of a visit to the emergency room for a suicide attempt was higher during the pandemic than before the pandemic. There was a slightly lesser increased tendency for visits to the emergency room for suicidal ideation during the pandemic.
The gender and age distribution showed that during the pandemic, girls in particular had a higher risk of coming to the emergency department because of a suicide attempt or suicidal thoughts. And especially among older children (mean age 16.3 years), self-harm increased during the pandemic, while it decreased among younger children (mean age 9 years).
“Our findings are consistent with other research related to the pandemic, which has shown an increase in mental illnesses such as depression and anxiety symptoms and eating disorders in adolescents […] document,” wrote Madigan and colleagues. Efforts are needed to understand the underlying factors and to be able to develop countermeasures, according to the authors.
Sources: Healio, The Lancet Psychiatry