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Prevalence of mental health symptoms in children and adolescents during the COVID-19 pandemic: a meta-analysis
Open accessAbstract
The COVID-19 pandemic and its accompanying infection control measures introduced sudden and significant disruptions to the lives of children and adolescents around the world. Given the potential for negative impacts on the mental health of youths as a result of these changes, we conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis to examine the prevalence of depressive symptoms, anxiety symptoms, and sleep disturbances in children and adolescents during the pandemic. We searched major literature databases for relevant cross-sectional or longitudinal studies that included primary and secondary school students or children and adolescents ≤18 years of age. Prevalence values were extracted, logit-transformed, and pooled. Based on 191 included studies with 1,389,447 children and adolescents, we found the pooled prevalence of depressive symptoms, anxiety symptoms, and sleep disturbances to be 31%, 31%, and 42%, respectively. Age, grade levels, education levels, gender, geographical regions, and electronics use were correlated with the prevalence of mental health symptoms. The prevalence of mental health symptoms also increased with time, although signs of recovery and stabilization were also observed. Overall, the results from this review demonstrate the need for increased mental health research, monitoring, and intervention for children and adolescents during the current and future pandemics.
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“women have higher prevalence rates of both depression and anxiety problems (Deng et al., 2023; Shorey et al., 2022)”
From Process of change and efficacy of acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) for anxiety and depression symptoms in adolescents: A meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials. (2025) · cites this paper as Deng et al., 2023
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Metadata
- Authors
- Deng, J., Zhou, F., Hou, W., Heybati, K., Lohit, S., Abbas, U., Silver, Z., Wong, C. Y., Chang, O., Huang, E., Zuo, Q. K., Moskalyk, M., Ramaraju, H. B., & Heybati, S.
- Affiliations
- University of Toronto (CA)
- McMaster University (CA)
- Western University (CA)
- Mayo Clinic (US)
- Carleton University (CA)
- University of Ottawa (CA)
- Rutgers New Jersey Medical School (US)
- Virginia Commonwealth University (US)
- Queen's University (CA)
- Corresponding author
- Deng, Jiawen
- ORCID
- Venue
- Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences
- Publisher
- Wiley
- Published
- 2022-12-20
- Volume
- 1520
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 53-73
- ISSN
- 0077-8923 (ISSN-L)
- 1749-6632
- PMC
- PMC9880764
- OpenAlex
- W4312019441
- Cited by
- 283
- References
- 252
- Citations by year
- 2026: 43 · 2025: 91 · 2024: 105 · 2023: 43 · 2022: 1
- FWCI
- 10.03
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
- Locations
- Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences (publishedVersion)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Scholarship at UWindsor (University of Windsor) (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- McMaster University
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › COVID-19 and Mental Health
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Child and Adolescent Psychosocial and Emotional Development
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health › Maternal Mental Health During Pregnancy and Postpartum
- Keywords
- COVID-19 pandemic, children and adolescents, psychiatric symptoms, depressive symptoms, anxiety symptoms, sleep disorders, prevalence, school students, digital technology use, gender differences, post-pandemic recovery
- MeSH terms
- COVID-19, Adolescent, Anxiety, Child, Cross-Sectional Studies, Depression, Humans, Mental Health, Sleep Wake Disorders, Prevalence, Pandemics
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