Mental health of high school students during COVID-19 pandemic

Editor's Note

This study from Austria finds a high prevalence of mental disorders in high school students 1 year after the COVID-19 pandemic began.

Of 3,052 adolescents who participated in the study:

• 55% had clinically relevant depressive symptoms
• 47% had clinically relevant anxiety symptoms
• 22.8% had clinically relevant moderate insomnia
• 59.5% had clinically relevant disordered eating behavior.

A total of 1,016 (36.9%) students had suicidal ideation, including 246 (8.9%) with suicidal ideation nearly every day and 203 (7.4%) with suicidal ideation more than half of the days.

Increased mobile phone use was linked to worse mental health.

The findings highlight the need to implement health promotion and prevention strategies for high school students, the authors say.