Mansfield, Rosie;
Santos, Joao;
Deighton, Jessica;
Hayes, Daniel;
Velikonja, Tjasa;
Boehnke, Jan R;
Patalay, Praveetha;
(2022)
The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on adolescent mental health.
Department for Education: London, UK.
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Abstract
The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on adolescent mental health is a widespread concern. However, to date, there is limited empirical evidence which can causally attribute changes to the pandemic. With the aim of overcoming some of the existing methodological limitations, the current study utilised a naturally occurring experiment within two ongoing school-based trials. Depressive symptoms, externalising difficulties (e.g., behaviour problems such as losing your temper or hitting out), and life satisfaction were assessed at baseline and 1-year follow-up across two groups. One group entered the study in phase 1 (2018; pre-COVID-19 group; N = 6,419) and were controls as they did not experience the COVID-19 pandemic between baseline and follow-up. The second group entered the study in phase 2 (2019; COVID-19 group; N = 5,031) and were exposed to the pandemic between baseline and follow-up, therefore providing a natural experiment. Key Findings • The COVID-19 pandemic led to increased adolescent depressive symptoms and decreased life satisfaction • If the COVID-19 pandemic had not occurred, estimates suggest that we would observe 6% fewer adolescents with high depressive symptoms which is a difference of 1.6% in prevalence (27.1% to 25.4%) • There was no overall effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on adolescent externalising difficulties • Girls’ mental health may have been more negatively impacted by the COVID 19 pandemic than boys
| Type: | Report |
|---|---|
| Title: | The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on adolescent mental health |
| ISBN-13: | 978-1-83870-341-7 |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| Publisher version: | https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/the-imp... |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | This version is the version of record available under the Open Government Licence v3.0 (https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/version/3/) |
| UCL classification: | UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Education > UCL Institute of Education UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Education > UCL Institute of Education > IOE - Social Research Institute UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Education UCL |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10146370 |
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