Increased severity of mental health symptoms among adolescent inpatients during COVID-19.

OBJECTIVE: Prior research suggests that the COVID-19 pandemic has been detrimental to adolescent mental health. However, no research has examined whether the pandemic is associated with increased symptom severity among high-risk youth, such as those hospitalized for a psychiatric crisis. METHOD: Over a four-year period, upon admission to an adolescent psychiatric inpatient unit, youth completed measures of depression (Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale), feeling like a burden and lack of belongingness (Interpersonal Needs Questionnaire), trauma-related symptoms (Child Trauma Screen), suicidal thoughts and behaviors (Self-Injurious Thoughts and Behaviors Interview Self-Report Version). We compared the severity of these symptoms for patients admitted during the pandemic to the severity for patients admitted to the same unit in the three years before the pandemic. RESULTS: Across most symptoms, youth hospitalized during the pandemic reported increased severity compared to those hospitalized before the pandemic. CONCLUSIONS: Adolescents requiring psychiatric hospitalization during the pandemic reported increased symptom severity compared to adolescents hospitalized on the same inpatient unit in the three years prior to the pandemic.

Exposure to violence and nonassociative learning capability confer risk for violent behavior.

A substantial body of research demonstrates that experiences of trauma are associated with disruptions in learning processes. Specifically, research shows altered nonassociative and associative learning in individuals who report traumatic experiences. The combination of trauma and altered learning also confers risk for negative health and mental health outcomes. One subtype of trauma that receives less attention in terms of its association with learning processes is exposure to violence (ETV)-witnessing violence, hearing gunfire, and/or being the victim of violence. Preliminary evidence shows that ETV is related to disruptions in nonassociative and associative learning processes, but these studies did not use direct and objective measures of learning. Additionally, research documents a robust relationship between ETV and violent behavior, but there has been no work examining whether it is the combination of elevated levels of ETV and learning patterns that poses a risk for engagement in violent behavior. In the present study, 164 participants completed two auditory basic learning tasks, one measuring nonassociative learning (habituation) and another measuring associative learning acquisition (classical conditioning), while skin conductance was recorded. Results indicate that individuals with higher ETV display a decreased likelihood of physiological habituation, but ETV is unrelated to associative learning acquisition. Further, the combination of higher ETV and nonhabituation predicts a greater number of violent crimes. These findings suggest that, for those with higher ETV, variations in capability for nonassociative learning may confer risk for violent behavior. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).