A significantly higher proportion of teenage girls visited hospital emergency rooms for mental health issues amid the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a recent study which also found that visits from boys actually declined during this period.
The July 12 study, published at the JAMA Network, looked at 4.1 million children aged five to 17 years and their mental health emergency department visits. During the second year of the pandemic, such visits among teen girls rose by 22.1 percent. During the pandemic, children were cut off from their school friends and other peers while remaining isolated at home, with some of them facing abusive parents. This amped up pressure on the kids.
