A longitudinal study of mental health in at-risk adolescents before and during the COVID-19 pandemic.

ABSTRACT: Although cross-sectional studies have shown that the COVID-19 pandemic has negatively affected the mental health of adolescents, the effect of the pandemic on adolescents with pre-pandemic symptoms is unclear. We, therefore, tested the hypothesis that adolescents had increased emotional and behavioral problems during the lockdowns imposed during the pandemic.This study included three measurements in a prospective cohort of 1022 adolescents who were oversampled based on their high risk of developing psychopathology. Before the pandemic, we assessed depressive, anxiety, stress, oppositional defiant problems, psychotic experiences and suicidality, using the Youth Self-Report; 445 and 333 of these 1,022 adolescents subsequently completed the online questionnaire in the first lockdown (in April

SUBMITTER: Bouter DC 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8853424 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature