{"id":9153,"date":"2025-09-10T14:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-09-10T18:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/stillcoviding.ca\/en\/?p=9153"},"modified":"2025-09-11T11:54:11","modified_gmt":"2025-09-11T15:54:11","slug":"kids-with-covid-had-a-50-to-60-higher-risk-of-depression-anxiety-in-2021-researchers-say","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stillcoviding.ca\/en\/news\/kids-with-covid-had-a-50-to-60-higher-risk-of-depression-anxiety-in-2021-researchers-say\/","title":{"rendered":"Kids with COVID had a 50% to 60% higher risk of depression, anxiety in 2021, researchers say"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Relative to uninfected children, COVID-19 patients aged 8 to 17 years were at a 49% higher risk for new-onset depression or anxiety in 2021, rising to 59% in those with severe illness, according to a University of Utah <a href=\"https:\/\/journals.plos.org\/plosone\/article?id=10.1371\/journal.pone.0331984\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">study<\/a> published this week in <em>PLOS One<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>The researchers mined the Utah All Payers Claims Database to explore the link between COVID-19 infection, illness severity, and risk of depression and anxiety among 154,565 school-aged youth who had private insurance or Medicaid coverage. The average participant age was 10.8 years in 2019, when the study period began, and 48% were girls.<\/p>\n<p>Key contributors to mental illness among children include the pandemic&#8217;s direct impacts on daily life, such as school closures, isolation from peers, and disrupted family routines, the authors noted.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;These challenges have likely had long-term consequences for the mental health and well-being of young people,&#8221; they wrote. &#8220;Moreover, COVID-19 infection itself may play a significant role in the development of mental health disorders among children and adolescents.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Relative to uninfected children, COVID-19 patients aged 8 to 17 years were at a 49% higher risk for new-onset depression or anxiety in 2021, rising to 59% in those with severe illness, according to a University of Utah <a href=\"https:\/\/journals.plos.org\/plosone\/article?id=10.1371\/journal.pone.0331984\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">study<\/a> published this week in <em>PLOS One<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>The researchers mined the Utah All Payers Claims Database to explore the link between COVID-19 infection, illness severity, and risk of depression and anxiety among 154,565 school-aged youth who had private insurance or Medicaid coverage. The average participant age was 10.8 years in 2019, when the study period began, and 48% were girls.<\/p>\n<p>Key contributors to mental illness among children include the pandemic&#8217;s direct impacts on daily life, such as school closures, isolation from peers, and disrupted family routines, the authors noted.<\/p>\n<div class=\"more-link-wrapper\"><a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/stillcoviding.ca\/en\/news\/kids-with-covid-had-a-50-to-60-higher-risk-of-depression-anxiety-in-2021-researchers-say\/\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Kids with COVID had a 50% to 60% higher risk of depression, anxiety in 2021, researchers say<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[266,26,18,29,238,8,14,51,1369],"class_list":["post-9153","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-anxiety","tag-children","tag-covid-19","tag-depression","tag-mental-health","tag-research","tag-sars-cov-2","tag-united-states","tag-university-of-utah","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stillcoviding.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9153","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stillcoviding.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stillcoviding.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stillcoviding.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stillcoviding.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9153"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stillcoviding.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9153\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9154,"href":"https:\/\/stillcoviding.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9153\/revisions\/9154"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stillcoviding.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9153"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stillcoviding.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9153"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stillcoviding.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9153"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}