Emotions and behaviours of child and adolescent psychiatric patients during the COVID-19 pandemic

TL;DR

This study explores how the emotions and behaviors of child and adolescent psychiatric patients in France changed during the first lockdown of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Contribution

The study provides new insights into the mental health of psychiatric patients during the pandemic, highlighting the role of family relationships and treatment continuity.

Findings

Mood states improved during the first lockdown for both child and adolescent psychiatric patients.

Improvement in mood was significantly associated with perceived improvement in family relationships.

Ongoing treatment may have had a protective effect during the pandemic.

Abstract

Previous pandemics have had negative effects on mental health, but there are few data on children and adolescents who were receiving ongoing psychiatric treatment.

To study changes in emotions and clinical state, and their predictors, during the COVID-19 pandemic in France.

We administered (by interview) the baseline Youth Self-Report version of the CoRonavIruS Health Impact Survey v0.3 (CRISIS, French translation) to 123 adolescent patients and the Parent/Caregiver version to evaluate 99 child patients before and during the first ‘lockdown’. For 139 of these patients who received ongoing treatment in our centre, treating physicians retrospectively completed longitudinal global ratings for five time periods, masked to CRISIS ratings.

The main outcome measure was the sum of eight mood state items, which formed a single factor in each age group. Overall, this score improved for each age group during the first lockdown. Clinician ratings modestly supported this result in patients without intellectual disability or autism spectrum disorder. Improvement of mood states was significantly associated with perceived improvement in family relationships in both age groups.

Consistent with previous studies of clinical cohorts, our patients had diverse responses during the pandemic. Several factors may have contributed to the finding of improvement in some individuals during the first lockdown, including the degree of family support or conflict, stress reduction owing to isolation, limitations of the outcome measures and/or possible selection bias. Ongoing treatment may have had a protective effect. Clinically, during crises additional support may be needed by families who experience increased conflict or who care for children with intellectual disability.

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