eprintid: 10185417 rev_number: 7 eprint_status: archive userid: 699 dir: disk0/10/18/54/17 datestamp: 2024-01-15 10:04:58 lastmod: 2024-01-15 10:04:58 status_changed: 2024-01-15 10:04:58 type: article metadata_visibility: show sword_depositor: 699 creators_name: Metherell, Thomas E creators_name: Ghai, Sakshi creators_name: McCormick, Ethan M creators_name: Ford, Tamsin J creators_name: Orben, Amy title: Digital access constraints predict worse mental health among adolescents during COVID-19 ispublished: pub divisions: UCL divisions: B16 divisions: B14 divisions: J81 note: This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. abstract: The COVID-19 pandemic and ensuing social restrictions disrupted young people’s social interactions and resulted in several periods during which school closures necessitated online learning. We hypothesised that digitally excluded young people would demonstrate greater deterioration in their mental health than their digitally connected peers during this time. We analysed representative mental health data from a sample of UK 10–15-year-olds (N = 1387) who completed a mental health inventory in 2017–2019 and thrice during the pandemic (July 2020, November 2020 and March 2021). We employed longitudinal modelling to describe trajectories of adolescent mental health for participants with and without access to a computer or a good internet connection for schoolwork. Adolescent mental health symptoms rose early in the COVID-19 pandemic, with the highest mean Total Difficulties score around December 2020. The worsening and subsequent recovery of mental health during the pandemic was greatly pronounced among those without access to a computer, although we did not find evidence for a similar effect among those without a good internet connection. We conclude that lack of access to a computer is a tractable risk factor that likely compounds other adversities facing children and young people during periods of social isolation or educational disruption. date: 2022-11-09 date_type: published publisher: NATURE PORTFOLIO official_url: http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-022-23899-y oa_status: green full_text_type: pub language: eng primo: open primo_central: open_green verified: verified_manual elements_id: 2012954 doi: 10.1038/s41598-022-23899-y medium: Electronic pii: 10.1038/s41598-022-23899-y lyricists_name: Metherell, Thomas lyricists_id: TEMET35 actors_name: Metherell, Thomas actors_id: TEMET35 actors_role: owner funding_acknowledgements: [British Psychological Society Undergraduate Research Assistantship Scheme]; [G C Grindley Fund from the School of the Biological Sciences, University of Cambridge]; [NIHR Applied Research Centre]; MC_UU_00030/13 [UK Medical Research Council]; ES/T008709/1 [Economic and Social Research Council]; [College Research Fellowship from Emmanuel College, University of Cambridge - Economic and Social Research Council]; [Institute for Social and Economic Research, University of Essex] full_text_status: public publication: Scientific Reports volume: 12 article_number: 19088 pages: 9 event_location: England issn: 2045-2322 citation: Metherell, Thomas E; Ghai, Sakshi; McCormick, Ethan M; Ford, Tamsin J; Orben, Amy; (2022) Digital access constraints predict worse mental health among adolescents during COVID-19. Scientific Reports , 12 , Article 19088. 10.1038/s41598-022-23899-y <https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-022-23899-y>. Green open access document_url: https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10185417/1/Digital%20access%20constraints%20predict%20worse%20mental%20health%20among%20adolescents%20during%20COVID-19.pdf