ArticlePLoS medicine2023
Comparison of new psychiatric diagnoses among Finnish children and adolescents before and during the COVID-19 pandemic: A nationwide register-based study.
Article in PLoS medicine, 2023. 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.
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10 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 13 citations in OpenAlex.
- Systematic review: Efficacy of off-label antipsychotic use in children and adolescents with obsessive-compulsive, mood dysregulation, depression, anxiety, and sleep-related disorders.European child & adolescent psychiatry · 2026Pooled it
- Impact of legislative reform on coercive measure use in child and adolescent psychiatry: A controlled interrupted time series analysis.European child & adolescent psychiatry · 2026Article
- Gender inequalities and the burden of anorexia and bulimia in Europe, 1990-2023: findings from the global burden of disease study 2023.European journal of public health · 2026Article
- Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on antidepressant use in eleven European regions: a comparative time series analysis 2018-2022.Social psychiatry and psychiatric epidemiology · 2026Article
- The associations between PTSD symptom clusters, insomnia, and depressive symptoms in Chinese adolescents with low and high levels of internet addiction: A cross-lagged network analysis.Psychological trauma : theory, research, practice and policy · 2026Article
- Trends in self-reported lifetime diagnosed depression and health behaviours in Poland, 2019/2020-2023/2024: a repeated cross-sectional study of 1.2 million adults.BMJ public health · 2026Article
- The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on administrative eating disorder prevalence in the outpatient sector and on severity of anorexia nervosa.European child & adolescent psychiatry · 2025Article
- Past trends and future projections of psychological distress among general population in Finland.BMJ public health · 2025Article
- Reimagining the journey to recovery: The COVID-19 pandemic and global mental health.PLoS medicine · 2023Article
- Comorbidities in newly diagnosed multiple sclerosis patients: A population-based register study in Finland.Multiple sclerosis journal - experimental, translational and clinicalArticle
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Authors and funding
7 authors at 3 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundCoronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) restrictions decreased the use of specialist psychiatric services for children and adolescents in spring 2020. However, little is known about the pattern once restrictions eased. We compared new psychiatric diagnoses by specialist services during pandemic and pre-pandemic periods. METHODS AND
findingsThis national register study focused on all Finnish residents aged 0 to 17 years from January 2017 to September 2021 (approximately 1 million a year). The outcomes were new monthly diagnoses for psychiatric or neurodevelopmental disorders in specialist services. These were analyzed by sex, age, home location, and diagnostic groups. The numbers of new diagnoses from March 2020 were compared to predictive models based on previous years. The predicted and observed levels in March to May 2020 showed no significant differences, but the overall difference was 18.5% (95% confidence interval 12.0 to 25.9) higher than predicted in June 2020 to September 2021, with 3,821 more patients diagnosed than anticipated. During this period, the largest increases were among females (33.4%, 23.4 to 45.2), adolescents (34.4%, 25.0 to 45.3), and those living in areas with the highest COVID-19 morbidity (29.9%, 21.2 to 39.8). The largest increases by diagnostic groups were found for eating disorders (27.4%, 8.0 to 55.3), depression and anxiety (21.0%, 12.1 to 51.9), and neurodevelopmental disorders (9.6%, 3.0 to 17.0), but psychotic and bipolar disorders and conduct and oppositional disorders showed no significant differences and self-harm (-28.6, -41.5 to -8.2) and substance use disorders (-15.5, -26.4 to -0.7) decreased in this period. The main limitation is that data from specialist services do not allow to draw conclusions about those not seeking help.
conclusionsFollowing the first pandemic phase, new psychiatric diagnoses in children and adolescents increased by nearly a fifth in Finnish specialist services. Possible explanations to our findings include changes in help-seeking, referrals and psychiatric problems, and delayed service access.
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