The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force: Screening Children under the Age of 18 for Anxiety during the 2018-2019 Pandemic
A panel of medical experts on Tuesday recommended for the first time that all kids under the age of 18 are screened for anxiety, new guidance that highlights the mental health crisis among American youth.
The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force — a volunteer panel of experts who make recommendations about the likely benefits and harms of various preventive health services — also reaffirmed its position that all adolescents ages 12 to 18 should be screened for depression.
“It just really highlights how mental health concerns were really a problem before the pandemic. I mean, we saw this huge increase in [emergency department] visits for kids of all ages, honestly, in 2019, and it’s very concerning,” said study co-author Dr. Audrey Brewer, an attending physician in advanced general pediatrics and primary care at Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago. We saw a lot more kids than usual, so wouldn’t necessarily have thought that would have problems with suicidal thoughts. We saw 5-year-olds.
“The earlier you identify symptoms, the earlier you intervene, and that reduces the amount of time a child is suffering,” said Dr. Cori Green, director of Behavioral Health Education and Integration in pediatrics at Weill Cornell Medicine in New York City, who did not work on the new recommendations.
Editor’s Note: Moira Szilagyi, MD, PhD, FAAP, is the president of the American Academy of Pediatrics. The views expressed in this commentary belong to the author. View more opinion at CNN.
Third, we must address the chronic understaffing of pediatric clinicians, including respiratory therapists and nurses, and the additional shortages created when clinicians left their jobs during the pandemic. The chronically understaffed and overburdened systems put children in need of care at risk, because they can’t find enough staff to take care of them. We need to support the population of children that are going to be sick.
The pandemic’s effects drew renewed attention to suicide in teens and young children. In June, the Biden administration called the recent rise in rates of depression, anxiety and suicidal thoughts among kids an “unprecedented mental health crisis.”
For parents, I can offer some reassurance – and some advice. Now is a very important time to have your family receive a vaccine for the flu and Covid-19. Regular hand washing, staying home if you are sick and covering your mouth and nose to reduce viral transmission from coughs and sneezes will all help.
If you are concerned about your child’s symptoms, it is best to call the child’s doctor. Try to be patient, as they are most likely fielding a high number of calls from other parents and caregivers.
Suicidal thoughts of children and mental health: How many children are struggling with suicide? A pediatric pediatric emergency room director says more than 300,000 people are considering suicide
If you are aware of someone who is struggling with suicidal thoughts or issues with mental health, you should call the hotline or visit the website.
There has been a rise in the prevalence of mental health challenges that can lead to suicide. Half of all female students reported feeling sad in 2009, but that number has risen to 1 in 3 in 2019. And there was a 36% increase in students who reported considering suicide, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Brewer thinks the true numbers are probably much higher than what the study found, because not all children who struggle with thoughts of suicide go to the emergency room.
The number of kids seeking help in his healthcare system has increased markedly, according to the senior vice president and COO at a San Diego children’s hospital.
Over the last nine years, we used to see up to two patients a day in a behavioral health crisis, but now, we see more than 20 a day.
Children also are responding to trauma in their lives and social influences on their health like poverty, historical trauma and marginalization, trouble at school, online bullying and the pressures brought by social media, in addition to a lack of access to counseling and therapy.
Brewer said adults can intervene when a child is thinking about suicide. She suggests that caregivers watch for any issues at school and among friends, and to look for signs of aggression or anxiety in a child who is isolating themselves.
“They may act out or have problems sleeping. Irritability, being withdrawn and isolating oneself are a lot of things that we’ll think about, Brewer said.
“It’s important for parents to feel empowered to really sit back and listen to their kids and talk to them. Really try to relate and understand what is going on with them and help promote positive relationships,” Brewer said.
“We really need to develop more of a strategy to help support all kinds in different ways and really focus on some of those traumas and social influences of health,” Brewer said. “We need to make sure more children will have safe places to grow and thrive.”