ArticleBMC public health2022
Mental health and life satisfaction among 10-11-year-olds in Wales, before and one year after onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Article in BMC public health, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 10 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
10 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on children's mental health: A systematic review.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2022Pooled it
- Annual Research Review: Improving school climate to improve child and adolescent mental health and reduce inequalities.Journal of child psychology and psychiatry, and allied disciplines · 2026Review
- Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on School-Based Medical Services in Austria.The Journal of school health · 2025Article
- New Modes of Practice: A Framework Analysis of School Nurses' Accounts of Working With Children and Young People During COVID-19.Journal of advanced nursing · 2025Article
- School and class closures and adolescent mental health during the second and later waves of the COVID-19 pandemic in Finland: a repeated cross-sectional study.BMC public health · 2023Article
- Inequalities in children's mental health before and during the COVID-19 pandemic: findings from the UK Household Longitudinal Study.Journal of epidemiology and community health · 2023Article
- Mental health in clinically referred children and young people before and during the Covid-19 pandemic.European child & adolescent psychiatry · 2023Article
- [Epidemiology of mental well-being in childhood and adolescence. Results from three epidemiological studies before and during the COVID-19 pandemic].Bundesgesundheitsblatt, Gesundheitsforschung, Gesundheitsschutz · 2023Article
- Life satisfaction in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic among middle school adolescents in France: findings from a repeated cross-sectional survey (EnCLASS, 2012-2021).Frontiers in pediatrics · 2023Article
- The correlation between lifestyle health behaviors, coping style, and mental health during the COVID-19 pandemic among college students: Two rounds of a web-based study.Frontiers in public health · 2022Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
9 authors.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundIn many countries, including in the United Kingdom (UK), COVID-19 social distancing measures placed substantial restrictions on children's lives in 2020 and 2021, including closure of schools and limitations on play. Many children faced milestones such as transition to secondary school having missed several months of face-to-face schooling in the previous academic years.
methodsThis paper examines change in mental health difficulties, life satisfaction, school connectedness, and feelings about transition to secondary school among 10-11-year-olds in Wales, UK, using data from repeat cross-sectional surveys before and after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Participants were 4032 10-11-year-old schoolchildren. The first cohort completed a school-based survey in 2019 (prior to introduction of social distancing measures), and the second in 2021 (following full return to school after two rounds of school closure).
resultsThe percentage of children reporting elevated emotional difficulties rose from 17% in 2019 to 27% in 2021 (Odds Ratio = 1.65; 95%CI = 1.23 to 2.20). There was no evidence of increased behavioural difficulties (OR = 1.04; 95%CI = 0.73 to 1.46). There was a tendency toward declines in life satisfaction in all analyses, but this intersected the null (OR = 0.86; 95%CI = 0.70 to 1.07). Children reported a high degree of school connectedness before and after the pandemic, with no evidence of change in ratings of teacher relationships, pupil relationships or pupil involvement in school life. There was no evidence of impacts of the pandemic on children's feelings about the transition to secondary school, with feelings becoming more positive as transition neared. Most findings were robust to a range of sensitivity analyses.
conclusionsSupporting children's emotional recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic is a public health priority requiring urgent and effective action at multiple levels of society. Maintaining connectedness to school through the pandemic may have played a role in preventing a steeper increase in child mental health difficulties.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.