80% of youths left with mental health struggle

FOUR in five children and adolescents have suffered potentially “severe and long term” mental health problems as a result of Covid-19, lockdowns and school closures, a study has concluded.

The research, led by a team at Oxford University, showed depression, anxiety, loneliness and stress increased in line with the duration of school closures.

It stated: “School closures contributed to increased anxiety and loneliness and stress, sadness, frustration, indiscipline and hyperactivity.

“Stressors included the inability to see friends, arguments with parents, unresolvable disputes via social media, academic stress and feelings of isolation.”

The review – Effects of Covid19 Restrictions on Childhood and Adolescent Mental Health – found while the “overall impact on suicide rates in children and adolescents still remained uncertain… the overall impact of Covid-19 restrictions on the mental health and wellbeing of children and adolescents is likely to be severe”.

Prof Carl Heneghan, director of the university’s Centre for Evidence Based Medicine, which conducted the research, said: “Why was there no cost benefit analysis to lockdown measures?

“Existing research shows half of all long-term mental health problems start by the age of 14, which shows that early years are vital to the formation of mental wellbeing over our life cycle.”

He added: “Our study shows that disruption to social connections and the ability to bond with

peers has had a major impact in childhood and adolescent years, leading to an increase in mental health problems, particularly in older adolescents.

“We now need to carry out follow-up studies to assess the longer term impact of lockdown on children and adolescents.

“We have to be concerned these measures may have severe and lasting effects.

“Any new measures which increase fear of Covid and social isolation must be avoided at all costs. The UN convention on children’s rights says the human rights of the child should be paramount

in any policy decisions.we have not done this.”

Former Children’s Commissioner Anne Longfield said: “Survey after survey has shown how the pandemic has had a catastrophic impact on the mental health of many children.

“Thousands of children are still not receiving the help they need.

“There is no longer any excuse for treating children’s mental health as a poor relation to adult mental health.”

A-level student Lucy Thorne, 18, who wrote an open letter to Boris Johnson in February, pleading with him to acknowledge the

struggles faced by the “lockdown generation” of children, said: “The biggest problem was prolonged isolation from our friends.

“Being a teenager is tumultuous.we were suddenly trapped in a house with only our family.

“Most teenagers dislike talking to adults and will turn to their peers when they have issues, but we could no longer socialise and discuss them like we used to.

“We had no way to express normal things and the feeling of loneliness was overwhelming.”

She added: “Lots of youngsters turned to substance abuse. The need for contact was like hunger

and they replaced it with alcohol or drugs. There are others who started hurting themselves or developed eating disorders.”

The Oxford study follows last week’s publication of the NHS Mental Health and Young People Survey, of 3,367 children and young people carried out in February/march this year.

It found that 39 per cent of six to 16-year-olds had experienced a deterioration in mental health since 2017.

Yesterday there were 30,301 infections and 121 deaths. Last Saturday there were 32,468 infections and 122 deaths.