Adolescent stress at ‘worst point of crisis’
Kids, teens struggling with mental health
Children and teens are at “the worst point of crisis” in terms of their mental health that we’ve seen in the past year, according to one Boston doctor, as pandemic stress wears on and psychiatric emergencies increase.
“We are definitely into a dramatic increase of the number of kids in the emergency room due to psychiatric crises right now,” said Dr. Ralph Buonopane, director of the McLean-Franciscan Child and Adolescent Inpatient Program at Franciscan Hospital for Children.
Buonopane said that in the beginning of the pandemic, mental health issues spiked in adults as they suffered unemployment and other stressors. But a second wave of distress took place in kids more recently.
“We’re definitely at the worst point of crisis for kids that we’ve seen in the past year, the kids I think are really experiencing a prolonged disruption in their support systems and the stress in their families,” Buonopane said.
He added, “This may be the case for awhile.”
Before the state of emergency was called in Massachusetts, there were about 15,000 weekly emergency room visits on average, according to data from the Department of Public Health. Weekly emergency department visits for suicidal ideation in youths 24 and under averaged 333, and there were 55 weekly suicide attempts.
After the state of emergency was called, average weekly emergency room visits plummeted to about 8,000, but average weekly suicide attempts dropped by much less, to 54 visits following attempts and 269 average visits for suicidal ideation.
Eight Massachusetts children between ages 10 and 17 died by suicide from March to September of 2020, according to the DPH, which is up from six deaths for the same time period in 2019.
The figures are still preliminary though, and the full scope of mental health data from the pandemic is not yet available.
Dr. Dan Dickstein, the head of McLean Hospital’s Center of Excellence in Child and Adolescent Psychiatry said suicide data among children, “was bad before the pandemic, it will likely be possibly worse during the pandemic.”
Dickstein noted some recent Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data that shows beginning in April 2020, the proportion of mental health-related emergency room visits for children aged 5–11 and 12–17 increased approximately 24% and 31% from 2019 figures.
Another study published with the American Academy of Pediatrics showed significantly higher rates of suicide ideation among kids aged 11-21 in March and July 2020 and higher rates of suicide attempts in February, March, April and July 2020 as compared with the same months in 2019.
Dickstein said, “Unfortunately, everywhere in the country including Massachusetts, despite wonderful care for kids’ mental health, there’s never enough access to quality child mental health care.”
Pata Suyemoto, co-chair of the Massachusetts Coalition for Suicide Prevention Alliance for Equity said it can be hard for parents to notice signs of depression in their children, especially if they haven’t had previous experience with mental health conditions.
“I think certainly we see the distress is higher and I think whenever you have incredible distress, the possibility of suicide goes up, so we need to think of ways to support youth now,” Suyemoto said.
Suyemoto said she has major depression and PTSD, and attempted to take her own life when she was a teenager, “I felt really hopeless, I felt like there wasn’t anywhere to go.”
But, she added, “You can live with a chronic mental health concern and still have a life that’s worth living and you can be productive and all those things even with a diagnosis.”
The number for the national suicide hotline is 800-273-8255.