Krista Schemitsch ’24, Health Sciences, 22W

Figure: The mental health of children has and is continuing to be influenced by changes resulting from the COVID-19 virus.

Image Source: Wikimedia Commons

Despite the physical pathology of COVID-19 generally having a lower severity in youth as opposed to adults, the psychological effects of the pandemic for children are nonetheless substantial. Significant changes to daily life and normalcy, persisting over an almost a two-year duration, have altered the environmental stimuli that play a key role in early development. For example, children’s access to school has changed dramatically, resulting in decreases to conventional social exposure. Changes have also occurred on the family unit level: financial difficulty, food insecurity, parental stress and domestic abuse have all increased. With the lack of stimulation both cognitively and socially as well as the intensified household turmoil, both the cognitive development and mental health of children have been negatively impacted (Amjadi, 2021).

The safety precautions taken because of the COVID-19 virus resulted in two different concerns pertaining to development: the hinderance of the usual developmental trajectory and the detour towards harmful development. Regarding impediment of societal and intellectual growth in children, the lack of socialization, a stimulus crucial in the establishment of anatomical brain structures during early development, could result in atrophy of those regions if gone unused. This includes the prefrontal cortex which is important for expression, behavior and decision making. Furthermore, without the necessary stimulation present, the delay of skills, such as language acquisition and social collaboration, generally retained in early childhood is apparent. These stimuli, found in daily interaction between children and nonfamilial individuals, were removed by social distancing and isolation (Amjadi, 2021). Pre-adolescents felt differing effects of isolation as they were already accustomed to routine interaction with others and were more aware of the milestones they were missing (University of Calgary, 2021).

The second issue in development is the unfavorable increase in mental health problems. The growth of negative mental stability is quantifiable; children in quarantine have a stress level four times as great as those who did not experience it. Additionally, fifty percent of children also experience symptoms linked to post-traumatic stress (Amjadi, 2021). Another computable example of the decrease in children’s mental happiness is the increase in emergency department visits for mental health reasons. Between the months of April and October of 2020, there was an increase of 24% for visits of 5-11 year-olds and an increase of 31% for visits of 12-17 year-olds. The majority of these visits were from females (Leeb, RT. et al., 2020) A study done by University of Calgary, published in the JAMA Pediatrics medical journal, concluded from a meta-analysis using dozens of different global studies that one in every four youth individuals are showing symptoms of clinically elevated depression and one in every five youth individuals are showing symptoms of clinically elevated anxiety symptoms. Moreover, this fraction is continually growing at an exponential rate. (University of Calgary, 2021).

The emergence of the COVID-19 virus and subsequent changes in life that have occurred affected countless individuals. For children, the pandemic has infiltrated a significant fraction of their lives at a timeframe in development that is crucial for foundational construction. The short terms effects, including social delay and mental health concerns, have already been noticeable. Now, with new variants emerging and the virus becoming a new constant variable of life, the normalcy that once existed is becoming more distant and the long-term effects children will face are going to begin appearing.

References

Amjadi, K. (2021). Exploring Factors That Influence Children’s Growth and Development During a Pandemic. Global Pediatric Health. https://doi.org/10.1177/2333794X211042464

Leeb RT, Bitsko RH, Radhakrishnan L, Martinez P, Njai R, Holland KM. Mental Health-Related Emergency Department Visits Among Children Aged <18 Years During the COVID-19 Pandemic – United States, January 1-October 17, 2020. MMWR Morb Mortal Wkly Rep 2020;69:1675-1680. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.15585/mmwr.mm6945a3external.icon.

University of Calgary. (2021, August 9). Youth, the pandemic and a global mental health crisis: Depression and anxiety symptoms have doubled, help needed, warn clinical psychologists. ScienceDaily. Retrieved January 21, 2022 from www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/08/210809112840.htm