Despite the clear need for action, access to mental health services for children and young people remains inadequate. However, promising interventions include skills-building programmes for adolescents and for caregivers to promote responsible and safe engagement with social media; and technological tools to promote online safety, including reporting systems. Evidence to inform a public health approach for safe and healthy engagement with social media and digital technology for children is limited. In fact, when these interventions reach caregivers with mental health conditions, they could reduce the risk of mental health conditions in their children by 40%. Without support, mental health conditions can negatively impact children and young people’s (CYP) education, employment and relationships, limiting life trajectories.
There is increasing evidence of climate change impacts on young people’s mental health who are a priority population group in the context of climate change. This amplification of socio-economic determinants of mental health and of inequality has likely contributed to an increase in anxiety and depression that has disproportionately affected young people (15, 68, 174–176). For instance, symptoms of anxiety decreased from pre-pandemic levels to during the first UK lockdown but increased upon the return to school for year-olds (162). As somewhat expected, little evidence was found to support the role of economic variables (e.g., no working parent, worry about unemployment) in explaining increases in psychological distress in Scottish adolescents during a period of reduced economic hardship (102). Across the working-age population, young Australians (15–24 years) have shown the largest decrease in mental health and wellbeing and increase in high/very high symptoms of psychological distress since 2010 (160).
Extreme depression can lead a child to think about suicide or plan for suicide. Like anxiety, depression is not one disorder but a category of conditions. Occasionally being sad or feeling hopeless is a part of every child’s life.
Therapist (Pickens County Schools)
The silent treatment might be a strategic insult or just the unfortunate side effect of an online adolescent relationship that starts out intensely but then fades away. For one thing, kids now know with depressing certainty when they’re being ignored. When you don’t have that, it’s easy to become emotionally depleted, fertile ground for anxiety to breed.”
- Social determinants of mental health refer to the structural conditions individuals are exposed to throughout their lives, from conception to death (86).
- Emerging adulthood is a heightened period of instability and identity explorations, which have been correlated with anxiety (210).
- Without support, mental health conditions can negatively impact children and young people’s (CYP) education, employment and relationships, limiting life trajectories.
- The three study time points included June 21–23, 2021 (T1), August 9–11, 2021 (T2), and September 27–29, 2021 (T3).
- Conversely, a rise in cyberbullying in 2020 occurred in the absence of increasing anxiety and depressive symptoms (141).
Author contributions
These include anxiety, sadness, grief, hopelessness, powerlessness, depression, and existential worries about the future (177–180). Conversely, findings from Denmark indicate that the largest increases in emotional symptoms have occurred in high and middle socio-economic classes (46); however, a substantial proportion of cases with emotional problems had missing socio-economic status data, which may have skewed findings. Increasing social inequalities have similarly been observed in relation to rising rates of depression in Finland and the US (6, 44). This suggests that growing income disparities are intensifying relative inequality across generations, leaving today’s youth more disadvantaged compared to previous generations (171).
The prevalence of suicidality, including current suicidal thoughts, lifetime suicidal attempts and future likelihood of suicidal thoughts, was found to be prevalent in 7.2 percent of the population. Altogether, 7.9 percent of the population between 15 and 24 were found to have anxiety, and 6.6 percent had depression. Likewise, 10.4 percent of females and 4.8 Supporting early childhood mental health percent of males were found to be suffering from anxiety. The upcoming 2026 Child and Adolescent Mental Health Conference will include keynote sessions, practical workshops, and lived\u2011experience panels across topics such as digital engagement, neurodivergence, trauma, education systems, family support and young people’s voices. The findings indicate that past 12-month GHB use increased from 0.07% in 2013 to 0.19% in 2024, indicating an annual percentage change of 9.3%.