Observational studyJAMA network open2024
COVID-19 Pandemic School Disruptions and Acute Mental Health in Children and Adolescents.
Observational study in JAMA network open, 2024. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 13 papers.
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Who cites it
13 citing papers in PubMed.
- Psychiatric diagnosis on the edge: is there evidence of benefit?European child & adolescent psychiatry · 2026Article
- Independent contribution of emotion dysregulation to suicide attempts in adolescents beyond the role of depressive symptoms.Scientific reports · 2026Article
- Perceived academic pressure and mental health in adolescents: a cross-sectional study examining individual vulnerabilities and school climate.Child and adolescent psychiatry and mental health · 2026Article
- Emotional Dysregulation and Temperament in Adolescents with Acute Psychiatric Conditions: Gender Differences and the Role of Psychiatric Diagnosis.Journal of clinical medicine · 2026Article
- Mental Health Emergency Department Visits and Hospitalizations Among Alabama Publicly Insured Youth During COVID-19.Psychiatric research and clinical practice · 2026Article
- Social and individual factors associated with eating disorders risk among adolescents in secondary schools of Sicily (south-Italy).Child and adolescent psychiatry and mental health · 2025Article
- Post-COVID Surge in Pediatric Emergency Department Accesses for Psychiatric Conditions: A Retrospective Analysis of Anxiety, Self-Injury Behaviors, and Psychomotor Agitation.Journal of clinical medicine · 2025Article
- Youth mental health crisis: A translational view of the COVID-19 pandemic.Neurobiology of stress · 2025Review
- Promoting Youth Mental Wellbeing: A Photovoice Project with Adolescents and Young Adults in the Hospital Context.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2025Article
- Non-suicidal self-injury in adolescents: a clinician's guide to understanding the phenomenon, diagnostic challenges, and evidence-based treatments.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2025Review
- Emotion regulation strategies and mental wellbeing among Chinese college students during COVID-19: the moderating roles of confinement and attentional bias.Frontiers in psychology · 2025Article
- Network analysis of the relationship between negative life events and depressive symptoms among adolescents: a comparison between males and females.Frontiers in pediatrics · 2025Article
- Burden of the COVID-19 pandemic on adolescent mental health in the Lombardy Region, Italy: a retrospective database review.BMJ paediatrics open · 2024Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
30 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Importance: There are suggestions that school pressure may be stressful and a factor in child and adolescent mental health disturbances, but data about this association are scarce and inconclusive. Objective: To assess whether varying degrees of school interruption were associated with changes in emergency department (ED) psychiatric visits of children and adolescents before and after the COVID-19 outbreak. Design, Setting, and Participants: A cross-sectional observational study was conducted at 9 urban university hospitals in Italy. All ED visits from January 1, 2018, to December 31, 2021, for psychiatric reasons of patients younger than 18 years were examined for demographic characteristics and type of psychopathologic factors. Data analysis was conducted from July 1 to August 31, 2023. Exposure: The disruption in the usual succession of school and holiday periods brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic at different times and with various degrees of intensity. Main Outcomes and Measures: Total number of pediatric ED visits, psychiatric ED visits, and psychiatric ED visits categorized by specific reasons (eg, psychomotor agitation, suicide ideation [SI] or suicide attempt [SA], and eating disorders) on a weekly basis. Results: A total of 13 014 psychiatric ED visits (1.3% of all pediatric ED visits) were recorded (63.2% females; mean [SD] age, 13.8 [3.8] years). The number of ED psychiatric visits increased over time (incidence rate ratio [IRR], 1.19; 95% CI, 1.16-1.22 for each year). Significant increases in ED visits were observed for eating disorders (294.8%), SI (297.8%), and SA (249.1%). School opening, but not social lockdown restriction, was associated with an increase in the number of ED psychiatric visits (IRR, 1.29; 95% CI, 1.23-1.34), which was evident for females and for SI with SA. Socioeconomic status was associated with an increase in psychiatric visits for males (IRR, 1.12; 95% CI, 1.04-1.20) but not females (IRR, 1.04; 95% CI, 0.98-1.10). Conclusions and Relevance: In this study, school opening was associated with an increased incidence of acute psychiatric emergencies among children and adolescents, suggesting that school can be a substantial source of stress with acute mental health implications.
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