Is SARS‐CoV‐2 seroconversion a risk factor for severe and acute psychiatric symptoms in children?

Abstract

Since the beginning of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, studies reported an increase in children's mental health issues. 1 Beyond the surge in environmental stressors such as restrictive isolation measures, the rapid actualization of psychiatric symptoms in children may be directly related to the SARS-CoV-2 through its neurotropism. 2 This could suggest children hospitalized for severe psychiatric symptoms during the early months of the pandemic would have been more infected by the SARS-CoV-2 and thus more seroconverted than the general population sex-and age-matched controls. | ME THODSTo test this hypothesis, we included all children hospitalized from December 2020 to April 2021 (second lockdown period in France) in the child psychiatric department at the Robert Debré Hospital (Paris, France) for acute psychiatric symptoms (n = 52). Controls