Prevalence of mental health problems among children and adolescents during the COVID-19 pandemic: A systematic review and meta-analysis.
J Affect Disord
; 293: 78-89, 2021 10 01.
Article
in English
| MEDLINE | ID: covidwho-1275413
ABSTRACT
BACKGROUND:
This systematic review and meta-analysis examined the prevalence of depression, anxiety, sleep disorders, and posttraumatic stress symptoms among children and adolescents during global COVID-19 pandemic in 2019 to 2020, and the potential modifying effects of age and gender.METHODS:
A literature search was conducted in PubMed, Web of Science, PsycINFO, and two Chinese academic databases (China National Knowledge Infrastructure and Wanfang) for studies published from December 2019 to September 2020 that reported the prevalence of above mental health problems among children and adolescents. Random-effects meta-analyses were used to estimate the pooled prevalence.RESULTS:
Twenty-three studies (21 cross-sectional studies and 2 longitudinal studies) from two countries (i.e., China and Turkey) with 57,927 children and adolescents were identified. Depression, anxiety, sleep disorders, and posttraumatic stress symptoms were assessed in 12, 13, 2, and 2 studies, respectively. Meta-analysis of results from these studies showed that the pooled prevalence of depression, anxiety, sleep disorders, and posttraumatic stress symptoms were 29% (95%CI 17%, 40%), 26% (95%CI 16%, 35%), 44% (95%CI 21%, 68%), and 48% (95%CI -0.25, 1.21), respectively. The subgroup meta-analysis revealed that adolescents and females exhibited higher prevalence of depression and anxiety compared to children and males, respectively.LIMITATIONS:
All studies in meta-analysis were from China limited the generalizability of our findings.CONCLUSIONS:
Early evidence highlights the high prevalence of mental health problems among children and adolescents during the COVID-19 pandemic, especially among female and adolescents. Studies investigating the mental health of children and adolescents from countries other than China are urgently needed.Keywords
Full text:
Available
Collection:
International databases
Database:
MEDLINE
Main subject:
Pandemics
/
COVID-19
Type of study:
Cohort study
/
Observational study
/
Prognostic study
/
Randomized controlled trials
/
Reviews
/
Systematic review/Meta Analysis
Limits:
Adolescent
/
Child
/
Female
/
Humans
/
Male
Language:
English
Journal:
J Affect Disord
Year:
2021
Document Type:
Article
Affiliation country:
J.jad.2021.06.021
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