Global Prevalence of Depressive and Anxiety Symptoms in Children and Adolescents During COVID-19

🤖 Plain-English Summary

Importance: Emerging research suggests that the global prevalence of child and adolescent mental illness has increased considerably during COVID-19. These pooled estimates, which increased over time, are double of prepandemic estimates.

🔑 Key Findings

• However, substantial variability in prevalence rates have been reported across the literature.
• Objective: To ascertain more precise estimates of the global prevalence of child and adolescent clinically elevated depression and anxiety symptoms during COVID-19; to compare these rates with prepandemic estimates; and to examine whether demographic (eg, age, sex), geographical (ie, global region), or methodological (eg, pandemic data collection time point, informant of mental illness, study quality) factors explained variation in prevalence rates across studies.
• Data Sources: Four databases were searched (PsycInfo, Embase, MEDLINE, and Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials) from January 1, 2020, to February 16, 2021, and unpublished studies were searched in PsycArXiv on March 8, 2021, for studies reporting on child/adolescent depression and anxiety symptoms.

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