ArticleThe Lancet regional health. Europe2025
Adolescent mental health before, during, and after the COVID-19 pandemic in Iceland: a repeated, cross-sectional, population-based study.
Article in The Lancet regional health. Europe, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 8 papers.
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Who cites it
8 citing papers in PubMed.
- Symptom-level analysis of problematic social media use and its associations with health, well-being, and lifestyle in Lithuanian adolescents: a cross-sectional study.BMC public health · 2026Article
- Pediatric Acute Poisoning: The Bipolar Evolution of the Poisoning Spectrum from 2019 to 2024 in Southwest China.Journal of clinical medicine · 2026Article
- Health Literacy and Mental Health in Adolescents: Parental and Self-Reported Cross-Sectional Data in a Bilingual Region.Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Article
- Mental health trajectories of children and adolescents up to 5 years after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic: a longitudinal study.Child and adolescent psychiatry and mental health · 2026Article
- Understanding bidirectional and transactional relations in parent and offspring mental health: Using COVID-19 pandemic data to gain insights.JCPP advances · 2026Article
- Usage Trends of Student Counseling Rooms at Juntendo University's Hongo and Ochanomizu Campuses and at Other Universities in Japan: A Perspective Review.Juntendo medical journal · 2026Article
- Changes in Child and Youth Mental Health Following the Return To In-Person Learning Post-COVID-19 Pandemic.Current psychiatry reports · 2025Review
- Youth mental health crisis: A translational view of the COVID-19 pandemic.Neurobiology of stress · 2025Review
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Authors and funding
15 authors.
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Abstract
Background: Adolescents' mental health declined during the COVID-19 pandemic, yet little is known about the long-term outcomes after the pandemic's declassification as a global health emergency (5 May 2023). This study examined changes in adolescent mental health in Iceland from 2016 to 2023, using a bioecological framework to identify risk and protective factors. Methods: Youth in Iceland surveys were administered nationwide to 13-15-year-olds in 2016, 2018, 2020, 2021, 2022 and 2023, with an average 75% response rate across the years. The surveys included measures on depressive symptoms, anxiety and hostility (Symptom Checklist-90), parental social support (Perceived Parental Support Scale), screen time, and stress/trauma exposure (Negative Life Events Scale). Stepwise-reduced mixed-effects models assessed the association of age, gender, time and risk/protective factors and their effect on mental health. Multiple imputation addressed missing data, and Bonferroni corrections adjusted for multiple testing. Findings: 62,011 adolescents participated: 48.2% female (n = 29,890), 50.0% male (n = 31,002), 1.8% non-binary (n = 1119). Depressive symptoms showed signs of improvement post-pandemic (2023) compared to 2021 (β 0.19, 95% CI 0.13-0.24), yet remained higher than pre-pandemic levels (2016: β -0.38, 95% CI -0.44 to -0.33; 2018: β -0.26, 95% CI -0.31 to -0.20). Anxiety and hostility also increased and remained higher than pre-pandemic levels in 2023 (anxiety: 2016 β -0.29, 95% CI -0.35 to -0.24, 2018 β -0.20, 95% CI -0.26 to -0.15; hostility: 2016 β -0.26, 95% CI -0.31 to -0.20, 2018 β -0.12, 95% CI -0.18 to -0.07). Across all the models examining the predictors from diverse bioecological spheres, low parental social support, high social media use, and bad grades were consistently associated with poor mental health, regardless of mental health outcome and gender. Interpretation: The COVID-19 pandemic has had a serious and continuing negative effect on adolescents' mental health. Targeted interventions are needed to address the increase in mental health problems during the COVID-19 pandemic, with a focus on enhancing parental support and managing screen use. Funding: Icelandic Research Fund (217612-051); NordForsk (147386).
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