Overview of Children's Mental Health Surveillance

Although mental health symptoms increased during the COVID-19 pandemic, findings show that this increase was short-lived.

Changes to mental health were widely reported throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, throughout various locations, socioeconomic levels, and other demographic factors. The purpose of this study, published in the Journal of Affective Disorders, was to analyze these changes throughout 2020, including an attempt to understand whether changes were persistent, and if they were symptom specific.

For this study, the authors conducted a review and meta-analysis of longitudinal cohort studies examining changes in mental health among the same group of participants before and after the COVID-19 pandemic. Sixty-five studies were included in total. Results revealed an overall increase in symptoms compared to pre-pandemic times, but these symptoms declined throughout March and April, becoming non-significant by around July. Increases in depression tended to be longer lasting.

Among the findings of this study, the authors found changes in mental health were less pronounced in those already dealing with mental health issues, and an overall resilience of mental health throughout the population. This is backed up by a decline in suicide rates. An increase in depression and mood-disorder symptoms was observed at various times during the pandemic, and the authors note that this is the greatest concern their findings point to, although it remained less significant than it was anticipated to be.

The authors note that there was a high degree of heterogeneity observed in the data, which they were unable to explain. This indicates that change in mental health was highly variable across samples, despite the consistent findings. The paper concludes by noting that although an increase in mental health symptoms was observed during the COVID-19 pandemic, it decreased to pre-pandemic levels by around mid-2020 among most population groups.

Reference:
Robinson, E., Sutin, A. R., Daly, M., & Jones, A. (2022). A systematic review and meta-analysis of longitudinal cohort studies comparing mental health before versus during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. J Affect Disord, 296, 567-576. doi: 10.1016/j.jad.2021.09.098

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