Top Research Papers on Adolescent Mental Health

Traumatic events and daily stress were strongly associated with psychological distress in adolescents living in a war-torn region in Ukraine and can help in understanding, measuring, and addressing the long-term impact that the current escalating war in Ukraine will have on adolescents' mental health and social functioning.

IMPORTANCE: The prevalence of adolescent depression and other internalizing mental health problems has increased in recent years, whereas the prevalence of externalizing behaviors has decreased. The association of these changes with the use of mental health services has not been previously examined. OBJECTIVE: To examine national trends in the care of different mental health problems and in different treatment settings among adolescents. DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS: Data for this survey study were drawn from the National Survey on Drug Use and Health, an annual cross-sectional survey of ...

The pandemic's diverse impacts on adolescent mental health, which vary with adolescents' prepandemic mental health and sociodemographic backgrounds, underline the need for tailored mental health support for adolescents and targeted measures to mitigate inequalities in the mental health impact of the pandemic.

This interdisciplinary Viewpoint describes literature from a variety of domains that highlight how social deprivation in adolescence might have far-reaching consequences and how physical distancing might have a disproportionate effect on an age group for whom peer interaction is a vital aspect of development.

The design of this review is to investigate and identify the risk factors to mental health and propose possible solutions to avoid the detrimental consequence of this crisis on the psychology of the authors' future adult generations.

Loneliness is associated with depression and anxiety in children and young people with pre-existing mental health conditions, and this relationship may be bidirectional, and interventions to address loneliness should be further developed and tested.

Swedish adolescents exposed to COVID-19 during most of 2020 showed no differences in longitudinal changes in mental health, relationships with parents and peers, and health behaviours compared to those not exposed to the pandemic.

Significant increases were found pre- to post-intervention in three of five help seeking behaviors, along with improved mental health literacy and decreased mental health-related stigma, which are likely protective against suicide.

There is an urgent need to adapt and design new psychosocial interventions that can be pilot-tested and scaled with pregnant adolescents and adolescent parents and their extended networks, particularly in low-income settings.

Research confirms that children and adolescents are experiencing significant anxiety and depression during the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic. Adolescents may be at greater risk, particularly females. Social isolation, loneliness, lack of physical exercise, and family stress may contribute to these problems. Children who feel unsafe with regards to coronavirus disease 2019 may be more likely to experience somatic symptoms, depression, and anxiety. Parental stress and mental health problems may put children at an increased risk for maltreatment. Medical and behavioral health professionals sh...

Evidence of a graded association between ACEs exposure and adolescents' mental health conditions is provided and early childhood, multilevel, trauma-informed interventions are needed to prevent negative youth outcomes associated with ACEs.

Focus groups with adolescents aged 11–18 years and mental health practitioners discussed what might be thought of as the “good”, the "bad” and the "ugly" side of social media, navigating the benefits ofsocial media to well-being against possible negative impacts on adolescents.

Assessment of the psychological and lifestyle impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on Australian adolescents, using an online survey, showed that three quarters of the sample experienced a worsening in mental health, since the pandemic began.

Multi-level modeling analyses showed a within-person increase in mental health symptoms from before to after the COVID-19 outbreak after controlling for changes associated with maturation, andSymptom increases were mitigated in youth with greater self-efficacy and (to some extent) problem-focused engaged coping, and exacerbated in Youth with greater emotion- focused engaged and disengaged coping.

BACKGROUND: Obtaining recent estimates of the prevalence of suicide-related outcomes across adolescence and its associated mental health problems (MHPs) is important for clinical practice. We estimated the prevalence of suicide-related outcomes at ages 13, 15, 17, and 20 years (2011–2018) in a contemporary population-based cohort and documented associations with MHPs throughout adolescence. METHODS: Data came from 1618 participants in the Québec Longitudinal Study of Child Development. Internalizing (depression and anxiety) and externalizing (oppositional/defiance, conduct issues, and attentio...

Evidence that schools are an essential component of the system of child and adolescent care and recommendations to advance this vital care delivery system are described, describing evidence that multitiered systems of mental health support and services in schools improve academic and psychosocial functioning and reduce risk of poor outcomes.

Epidemiological studies have established positive associations of urban nature with cognitive development and mental health. However, why specifically these health benefits are received remains unclear, especially in adolescents. We used longitudinal data in a cohort of 3,568 adolescents aged 9 to 15 years at 31 schools across London, UK, to examine the associations between natural-environment types and adolescents’ cognitive development, mental health and overall well-being. We characterized natural-environment types in three tiers, where natural space was distinguished into green and blue sp...

Excessive screen time in adolescents seems associated with mental health problems and additional studies are needed to clarify elements such as the screen content or the interaction of adolescents with different screen devices.

The overall difficulty levels reported by girls were significantly higher than boys across a range of mental health problems and subjective wellbeing, and these developmental trends persisted after controlling for a broad range of potential confounders.

Findings from epidemiological studies, published between 2008 and 2020, documenting the prevalence of mental health problems in adolescents from across sub-Saharan Africa are synthesised to form a qualitative synthesis.