Impact of COVID-19 on adolescents’ mental health: a systematic review

Octavius, Gilbert Sterling; Silviani, Felicia Rusdi; Lesmandjaja, Alicya; Angelina; Juliansen, Andry

BACKGROUND: The impact of COVID-19 towards psychology and mental health is anticipated to be significant and may affect the population disproportionately, especially adolescent as the vulnerable category. We aimed to analyze the impact of COVID-19 towards adolescents’ mental health. MAIN BODY: A systematic search was conducted from Cochrane, Google Scholar, Scielo, and PubMed. Inclusion criteria included all types of studies which observed the effect of COVID-19 and its related causes, such as lockdown, on adolescents’ mental health. All studies were assessed for its level of evidence according to Oxford 2011 criteria and Newcastle Ottawa Scale (NOS). Three studies (Seçer and Ulaş, Int J Ment Health Addict: 1–14, 2020; Zhou et al., Eur Child Adolesc Psychiatry 29:749–58, 2020; Qu et al., Lancet: 1–17, 2020) showed that COVID-19 was a risk factor for mental health problems in adolescents while Oosterhoff et al. (J Adolesc Health 67: 179–185, 2020) showed that adolescents who preferred to stay at home during this pandemic reported less anxiety and depressive symptoms CONCLUSION: COVID-19 has been found to be associated with mental health changes in adolescents which meant management of COVID-19 should also focus on mental health as well.