Mental Health
COVID’s “Devastating Impact” By Dr. Ned Ketyer Previously posted at www.ThePediaBlog.com on February 17, 2022
Ever since the American Academy of Pediatrics declared a national emergency in children’s mental health in October, evidence has been piling up that the pandemic is making things much worse. A recent study from Canada showed that mental health care services for anxiety, depression, psychotic disorders, and substance use in children and teenagers all increased since the start of the pandemic. Rising rates of despair in children might just be the tip of the iceberg. Lei Lei Wu discovered: “Given the chronic and cumulative nature of distress on mental health and well-being, the impact of the pandemic on
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AHN Pediatrics • Spring 2022 • www.ahnpediatrics.org
the mental health of children and adolescents is likely not yet fully realized,” [study author Dr. Natasha] Saunders and colleagues emphasized. In an accompanying editorial in JAMA Pediatrics, Dr. Tami Benton and colleagues sound the alarm for an urgent and sustained response to the mental health crisis in the United States and elsewhere: The immediate effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on children and adolescents has been significant, but the long-term effect will be more devastating without urgent action. Globally, 2.2 billion children have been or will be directly or indirectly affected by the COVID-19 pandemic and its sequelae. Saunders
