Dataset Information

Longitudinal trajectories of mental health and loneliness for Australian adolescents with-or-without neurodevelopmental disorders: the impact of COVID-19 school lockdowns.

ABSTRACT:

Background

The impact of COVID-19 (SARS-CoV-2) pandemic school lockdowns on the mental health problems and feelings of loneliness of adolescents with neurodevelopmental disorders (NDDs) is hypothesized to be greater than that of their non-NDD peers. This two and a half year longitudinal study compared changes in the mental health and loneliness of Western Australian adolescents pre-COVID-19 (November 2018 and April 2019), immediately prior to COVID-19 school lockdowns (March 2020), and post schools reopening (July/August 2020).

Methods

An age-and-gender matched sample of 476 adolescents with-or-without NDDs completed online assessments for mental health and loneliness.

Results

Adolescents with NDDs reported elevated levels of adverse mental health across all four waves of data collection. These young people experienced little change in mental health problems and feelings of loneliness over time, and any increase during school lockdowns returned to, or fell below pre-COVID-19 levels once schools reopened. In comparison, adolescents without NDDs experienced significant increases from a low baseline in depression symptoms, externalizing symptoms, feelings of isolation, and having a positive attitude to being alone, and evidenced a significant decline in positive mental wellbeing. Quality of friendships were unaffected by COVID-19 school lockdowns for all adolescents regardless of NDD status. Of the adolescents with NDDs, those with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder reported a significant increase in positive mental wellbeing following school lockdowns.

Conclusions

Adolescents with NDDs emerged relatively unscathed from COVID-19 school lockdowns and the short term impacts associated with these were not maintained over time. These findings should be considered in the context of this study's geographical location and the unpredictability of school lockdowns. Learning to live with school lockdowns into the future may be a critical element for further investigation in the context of interventions.

SUBMITTER: Houghton S

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9790479 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Publications

Longitudinal trajectories of mental health and loneliness for Australian adolescents with-or-without neurodevelopmental disorders: the impact of COVID-19 school lockdowns.

Houghton Stephen S Kyron Michael M Lawrence David D Hunter Simon Charles SC Hattie John J Carroll Annemaree A Zadow Corinne C Chen Wai W

Journal of child psychology and psychiatry, and allied disciplines 20220222 11

<h4>Background</h4>The impact of COVID-19 (SARS-CoV-2) pandemic school lockdowns on the mental health problems and feelings of loneliness of adolescents with neurodevelopmental disorders (NDDs) is hypothesized to be greater than that of their non-NDD peers. This two and a half year longitudinal study compared changes in the mental health and loneliness of Western Australian adolescents pre-COVID-19 (November 2018 and April 2019), immediately prior to COVID-19 school lockdowns (March 2020), and p ...[more]

PMID: 35194802

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Project description:IntroductionAdolescent and youth mental health problems are increasingly becoming an area of concern in global health. Young people in sub-Saharan Africa experience significant adversities and systemic challenges despite technological advancements and demographic transition that the region is experiencing. We examined the nexus between experiences of loneliness, low social support, and presence of suicidal ideation among in-school adolescents in sub-Saharan Africa.MethodA total of 19,119 in-school adolescents from eight countries in sub-Saharan Africa were included in this study. Suicidal ideation was the main outcome variable and loneliness, and social support were the explanatory variables. Percentages were used to summarise the prevalence of suicidal ideation, loneliness, and social support among the in-school adolescents. A multivariable binary logistic regression analysis was later used to determine the association between suicidal ideation and the explanatory variables and covariates using Stata v16. Four models were tested using the regression analysis. We presented the regression results using adjusted odds ratios (aOR), with their respective 95% confidence intervals (CIs).ResultsOverall, the past year prevalence of loneliness, peer support, one or more close friends, and suicidal ideation were 10%, 33.4%, 90.1%, and 14.5%, respectively. In-school adolescents who felt lonely (aOR = 1.88, 95% CI = 1.69, 2.09) were more likely to experience suicidal ideation. However, those who received peer support (aOR = 0.89, 95% CI = 0.82, 0.97) and had one or more close friends (aOR = 0.77, 95% CI = 0.68, 0.86) were less likely to experience suicidal ideation.ConclusionThese results point to the significant roles of loneliness, and lack of social support, in understanding suicidal ideations. Countries in sub-Saharan Africa need to improve child and adolescent mental health policies and programmes to respond to these risk factors and mental health challenges. Programmes with a differential focus on the needs of males and females, younger and older adolescents will be important in the future.

Project description:IntroductionLittle is known of the prevalence and correlates of mental and neurodevelopmental symptoms and disorders among deaf children and adolescents. Research suggests that this is a vulnerable population group at high risk of these disorders. However, little is known of correlates of prevalence estimates of these mental disorders and it seems that heterogeneous tools have been used to derive these estimates. Given the heterogeneity of studies measuring the prevalence and correlates of mental and neurodevelopmental symptoms and disorders among deaf children and adolescents, we seek to systematically examine and synthesise observational epidemiological evidence in this area to articulate a more detailed account of these symptoms and disorders and their correlates among this population group.Methods and analysisWe will conduct a systematic search of the following electronic databases to identify published observational epidemiological studies examining the prevalence and correlates of mental and neurodevelopmental symptoms and disorders among deaf children and adolescents: EBSCOhost, ERIC, PsycARTICLES, PsycINFO, PubMED, ScienceDirect, SCOPUS and Web of Science. As research in this area is limited, eight databases have been included to widen our search to include as many articles as possible. The search terms will be related to mental and neurodevelopmental symptoms and disorders as well as deaf children and adolescents. Two reviewers will review and extract data from each article independently and, where relevant, discuss differences to reach consensus. Additionally, the reviewers will assess overall study quality and risk of bias using a quality appraisal scale. Findings from studies will be synthesised to produce a quantitative review that summarises existing evidence on mental and neurodevelopmental symptoms and disorders among deaf children and adolescents and their correlates. The publication date of studies will not be restricted so that as much data as possible that fit our inclusion criteria can be sourced. We will conduct our searches between August 2020 and March 2021.Ethics and disseminationThis systematic review will use publicly available data and therefore does not require a direct ethical review. The protocol was however submitted for ethics waiver clearance with Stellenbosch University Health Research Ethics Committee. The protocol will be disseminated in a peer-reviewed journal. The review protocol was registered with the PROSPERO International Prospective Register of systematic reviews (http://www.crd.york.ac.uk/PROSPERO).Prospero registration numberCRD42020189403.

Project description:Understanding the neurodevelopmental trajectories of infants and children is essential for the early identification of neurodevelopmental disorders, elucidating the neural mechanisms underlying the disorders, and predicting developmental outcomes. Functional Near-Infrared Spectroscopy (fNIRS) is an infant-friendly neuroimaging tool that enables the monitoring of cerebral hemodynamic responses from the neonatal period. Due to its advantages, fNIRS is a promising tool for studying neurodevelopmental trajectories. Although many researchers have used fNIRS to study neural development in infants/children and have reported important findings, there is a lack of synthesized evidence for using fNIRS to track neurodevelopmental trajectories in infants and children. The current systematic review summarized 84 original fNIRS studies and showed a general trend of age-related increase in network integration and segregation, interhemispheric connectivity, leftward asymmetry, and differences in phase oscillation during resting-state. Moreover, typically developing infants and children showed a developmental trend of more localized and differentiated activation when processing visual, auditory, and tactile information, suggesting more mature and specialized sensory networks. Later in life, children switched from recruiting bilateral auditory to a left-lateralized language circuit when processing social auditory and language information and showed increased prefrontal activation during executive functioning tasks. The developmental trajectories are different in children with developmental disorders, with infants at risk for autism spectrum disorder showing initial overconnectivity followed by underconnectivity during resting-state; and children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorders showing lower prefrontal cortex activation during executive functioning tasks compared to their typically developing peers throughout childhood. The current systematic review supports the use of fNIRS in tracking the neurodevelopmental trajectories in children. More longitudinal studies are needed to validate the neurodevelopmental trajectories and explore the use of these neurobiomarkers for the early identification of developmental disorders and in tracking the effects of interventions.

Project description:BackgroundAdolescence is a period of profound developmental change during which the prevalence of mental health problems starts to increase. It also typically coincides with a school transition. Understanding mental health trajectories through school transition is important to inform interventions to support young people's mental health during this period.MethodsIn a longitudinal study with three assessment points spaced six months apart spanning the transition from primary (T1 = end of primary school [Year 6]) to secondary school (T2 = beginning of the first year secondary school [Year 7]; T3 = end of first year of secondary school [Year 7]) we carried out a latent class growth analysis of symptoms of common mental health problems. Young people (mean age at baseline of 11.2 years, standard deviation 0.29; 46.8% female; 53.2% male) from South East England (n = 1861) were included. We modelled emotional problems, conduct problems, hyperactivity and peer problems in parallel over the transition period. Individual-level variables: socioeconomic status (SES), special educational need(s) (SEN), gender, negative life events (NLEs) and being worried about transition were tested as predictors of trajectory class membership using multinomial logistic regression.ResultsA model with four trajectory classes provided the best fit to the data: 'persistently elevated' mental health problems, 'emotional and peer problems', 'hyperactivity and conduct problems' and 'persistently low' mental health problems. Class membership was differentially predicted by the individual-level variables.ConclusionsYoung people from low SES backgrounds, those with SEN and those who have experienced two or more NLEs are more likely to exhibit trajectories with elevated mental health difficulties through the transition to secondary school. Young people who were worried about transition were more likely to belong to a trajectory class characterised by elevated emotional problems.

Project description:BackgroundLoneliness has been recognized as a public health issue and has moved into a number of European countries' policy agendas. Literature examining loneliness in young people (and especially in adolescents) is scarce, but it does show that at this age feelings of loneliness have been increasing in recent decades and are detrimental for both adolescents' current and future well-being. In order to explain loneliness, current literature focuses generally on individual, rather than on broader, environmental characteristics. This study examines school associates of loneliness and compares their importance to those at the individual level because schools are the most important places in which adolescents are socially embedded. In addition, policy interventions on loneliness might be more feasible at the school than the individual level.MethodsThis study uses a single-item measure of adolescents' loneliness feelings in schools and exploits rich data from the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA 2018) on 23 European countries covering 118,698 students (50.2% female) in 4,819 schools. This study applies multi-level models to investigate school level factors jointly with those at the individual level.ResultsDifferences between European schools can explain a 20% variation in feelings of loneliness, thereby indicating the importance of the school environment. Furthermore, adolescents' bullying experiences and a bullying climate in school more than doubles incidences of loneliness. In addition, a cooperative climate as well as teacher support can considerably decrease school loneliness. Cross-level interactions do exist: being from a lower socioeconomic background for instance, while not important generally, increases loneliness feelings if most of the school peers are from a better socioeconomic background. School factors appear to be more important for explaining young people's loneliness incidence than individual characteristics.ConclusionThis is the first study to compare school level and individual level factors relating to youth loneliness in schools throughout Europe. Results emphasizing the importance of school environment for explaining adolescents' loneliness suggest that school level initiatives may be most appropriate in tackling loneliness when compared to wider and less contextualized national policies that focus on adolescents outside of school.

Dataset Information

Longitudinal trajectories of mental health and loneliness for Australian adolescents with-or-without neurodevelopmental disorders: the impact of COVID-19 school lockdowns.

Background

Methods

Results

Conclusions

Publications

Longitudinal trajectories of mental health and loneliness for Australian adolescents with-or-without neurodevelopmental disorders: the impact of COVID-19 school lockdowns.

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