The coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has brought focus to the effects of anxiety on children. This study aimed to review the existing literature regarding the impact of the pandemic on pediatric anxiety. This review analyzed the existing literature between the open-sourced collection on PubMed inputting “anxiety disorder in children during pandemic” and “pediatric anxiety OR child anxiety AND COVID” and that of the
Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry
using the keywords “social anxiety AND COVID.” This yielded 149 + 312 (461) entries and 68 articles were selected. Anxiety was found to have a prevalence of 18.9–23.87% in children during the COVID-19 pandemic whereas adolescent populations demonstrated a prevalence of 15.4–39.9%. Female gender was the most studied risk factor and physical activity was the most documented preventative factor. This review supported the notion that the COVID-19 pandemic is a major contributor to anxiety in the pediatric population.
All letters are subject to editing. Adolescent e-cigarette use: A public health crisis The use of electronic cigarettes (e-cigarettes) in teenagers has been increasing rapidly in the United States, leading Surgeon General Jerome Adams, MD, MPH, to label it a public health concern. 1 Easy accessibility and extensive marketing for e-cigarettes counteract public education campaigns and policies aimed at decreasing e-cigarette use in teenagers. E-cigarettes are marketed to teenagers as small, easy-to-use pens or USB flash drive-like devices that can be hidden easily. Some devices can be used to smoke nicotine, delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), cannabidiol, and butane hash oil. Some are sold with different nicotine flavors to increase their appeal. E-cigarette ads appear in retail stores, movies, magazines, newspapers, and on the internet. According to the CDC, the number of middle and high school students using e-cigarettes increased from 3.6 million in 2018 to 5.4 million in 2019. 2 Nicotine dependence from e-cigarette use can increase the risk of starting to smoke cigarettes. A 2015-2016 National Institute on Drug Abuse survey found a higher prevalence of e-cigarette use among 9th-, 10th-, and 12th-grade students compared with cigarette smoking (9.5%,
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