Tens of thousands of kids in the United Kingdom have been driven into clinical depression by coronavirus lockdowns, a study has found.
Lockdowns hoping to curb the spread of the Chinese coronavirus have driven tens of thousands of kids in the United Kingdom to clinical depression, a study published on Wednesday has suggested.
The study’s findings mirror those of a number of other investigations which found that children have been negatively affected as a result of harsh COVID-19 restrictions, which saw young people’s activities heavily restricted for an extended period of time.
According to the paper published in the Royal Society Open Science journal, children attending secondary schools in the United Kingdom found themselves suffering more from clinical depression as a result of COVID clampdowns.
Researchers found that 27.1 per cent prevalence of depression among their thousands-strong sample, which they say represents a notable increase from where they would have expected the percentage to be had the pandemic never occurred.
Overall, The Telegraph reports that this increased percentage means that 60,000 more youngsters were driven into clinical depression by the lockdown.
“After controlling for baseline scores and several school and pupil-level characteristics, depressive symptoms were higher in the COVID-19 group,” the study’s discussion section reads.
“These findings demonstrate that the COVID-19 pandemic increased adolescent depressive symptoms beyond what would have likely occurred under non-pandemic circumstances,” it said.
The study also stated that girls seemed to be particularly affected by lockdown measures; a finding that appears consistent with other data suggesting that the mental health of young girls is in a worse state than young boys in the modern age.
“Exploratory analyses suggest that the impact of the pandemic may have been greater in females, with females exposed to the pandemic showing greater depressive symptoms, externalizing difficulties and lower wellbeing,” it suggested.
An increased rate of depression is far from the only way pandemic lockdowns have negatively affected children in the United Kingdom.
British children were referred to specialist medical health professionals at record levels last year, with over 400,000 individuals under the age of 18 being judged as needing attention for the likes of eating disorders and self-harm.
Meanwhile, another investigation into the effect lockdown measures have had on children — this time with a focus on those of younger age groups — found that the development of many young people in Britain was “delayed”, with some even seeing their emotional and social development regress after their time cut off from much of society.
“There continues to be an impact on children’s physical development, including delays in babies learning to crawl and walk,” the report conducted by an arm of the British government reads, while also noting that speech and language skills had also seen delays.
Others within the British childcare sector have also said that they have noticed the negative effects of lockdown, with one nursery in particular even saying that they’ve seen children speak with the voices of cartoon characters that they had become familiar with over the period where their movement was restricted by government measures.
What’s more, one medical professional working for Health Security Agency has suggested that lockdown may have contributed to the recent mystery surge of hepatitis cases, which she believes is down to children not being exposed to a relatively normal adenovirus which may be causing serious illness in those vulnerable to it.