Pandemic Isolation and Mental Health Among Children

Abstract

Objective: Mental health issues increased during the COVID-19 pandemic, especially among children. Our past research efforts found that surveillance data can address a variety of health concerns; that personal psychological awareness impacted ability to cope, and mental health outcomes were improved when survivors were triaged to mental health countermeasures. To build upon our public health efforts we wanted to see if increased screen time due to remote learning caused by the pandemic influenced school aged children’s mental health. Methods: With the hypothesis that excessive time spent isolated during remote learning increased the amount of mental health events in children, we conducted a public health surveillance project on actual diagnoses rather than just symptoms, controlling for historical mental health and emotional disorders. Results: The entire cohort of children ages 6 to 17 years were studied over time before and during the pandemic for their medically diagnosed mental health and emotional outcomes by the amount of pandemic induced social isolation. Conclusions: After controlling for historical diagnoses and the rate of COVID-19, the effect of pandemic induced social isolation had a linear increase on the amount of anxiety, resulting in a four-fold increase in pandemic social isolation-induced anxiety.

Impactos do isolamento social durante a pandemia de COVID-19 em crianças e adolescentes

“…No texto construído por (Brannen DE et al, 2023) edifica-se uma ligação entre a quantidade de dias que a criança fica em isolamento social com diagnóstico de transtornos de humor, corroborando as ideias citadas nos parágrafos anteriores.…”

Perceived Impact of COVID-19 on Cyberabuse, Sexual Aggression, and Intimate Partner Violence Among U.S. Young Adults

“…Future research is needed to better understand equity issues regarding the impact of the pandemic on cyberabuse victimization among sexual and gender minority individuals, as some literature has shown that both sexual and gender minority groups experience disparate rates of technology-faciliated abuse (Powell et al, 2020). Finally, the potential for negative impact on older (and younger) age groups under periods of social isolation is obvious and has been examined since the early days of the COVID19 pandemic (e.g., Almeida et al, 2021; Brannen et al, 2023; Chang & Levy, 2021); future research may follow the current design with different age groups.…”

Maintaining a Dynamic Brain: A Review of Empirical Findings Describing the Roles of Exercise, Learning, and Environmental Enrichment in Neuroplasticity from 2017-2023

“…Social isolation (SI) induces lasting negative effects on the brain, and these effects could be more powerful or distinctly different when SI occurs during vulnerable periods, such as adolescence. Social isolation could result in lasting behavioral abnormalities and neuropsychiatric disorders, including aggression, substance addiction, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and eating disorders [129][130][131]. Adolescents, especially girls, are more likely to suffer from anxiety and depression during and after SI [132].…”