The proportion of children in the UK with mental issues was found to be 50% higher than it was before the pandemic, that country’s National Health Service reported this week.
According to the Mental Health of Children and Young People in England survey, one in six young people had a condition such as anxiety, depression or loneliness. Three years ago, only one in nine children was classified as probably having a mental disorder.
Young women were found to the worst affected – a quarter of those aged 17 to 22 identified as having a ‘probable mental disorder’.
Lead author Tamsin Ford, a professor of child and adolescent psychiatry at Cambridge, said the “significant deterioration in children’s mental health” was likely linked to lockdown instituted because of Covid19.
“We do know that loneliness is very toxic, and social isolation is very toxic for mental health.”
“The amount of change that children and parents reported in the survey and our own experiences of the pandemic would suggest very strongly that changes must relate to that,” she said.
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