ArticleFrontiers in psychiatry2026
Post-COVID-19 increases in depression and other psychiatric disorders among Saudi children and adolescents.
Article in Frontiers in psychiatry, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.
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Abstract
Background: The COVID-19 pandemic produced unprecedented disruption in the daily lives of children and adolescents worldwide, increasing vulnerability to emotional and behavioural difficulties. Objective: To evaluate changes in psychiatric diagnostic patterns among pediatric referrals before and after the COVID-19 pandemic in a large Saudi tertiary healthcare system and compare these trends with Gulf and international findings. Methods: A retrospective cross-sectional review was conducted of new psychiatric referrals aged 3-18 years at Johns Hopkins Aramco Healthcare (JHAH), Dhahran. Pre-pandemic data included all referrals from 2019. Post-pandemic service-recovery data included referrals from January-November 2021. Routine psychiatric outpatient clinics were fully suspended during 2020 due to institutional COVID-19 emergency policy, meaning no routine outpatient psychiatric referrals occurred that year. To avoid bias associated with service suspension, 2020 was excluded from analysis. Diagnoses were grouped using ICD-10 categories. Descriptive and inferential statistics were applied. Results: Significant increases were observed in depressive disorders, anxiety disorders, sleep-wake disorders, feeding and eating disorders, and total psychiatric referrals after the pandemic. These findings closely parallel Gulf regional and international literature. Conclusion: The COVID-19 pandemic was associated with marked increases in psychiatric morbidity among Saudi youth. Expanded screening, early intervention and service capacity are required to mitigate long-term impact.
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