United States: A new study reveals that self-poisoning which is among female children and teenagers has actually increased by 37% over the past four years and the study finds that this rise is strongly connected to the COVID-19 pandemic and also the restrictions that were in place, which affected the mental health of many young people. The study highlights the importance of understanding how these challenges have impacted kids and finding ways to support them.
In the study done by the authors published in the Australian and New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry and revealed the deliberate self-poisoning increased by 84% among 5–14-year-old, and by 36% among the 15–19 years between March 2020 and December 2023 compared to year 2018–19. There were no significant fluctuations among males and older population group.
In the 5- to 14-year-olds, the poisonings were most evident in the post pubertal girls in the 11-14 age group. According to the researchers, self-poisoning in those teenage girls seemed to be associated with lockdown actions and not directly with COVID outcomes.
As reported by the Medicalxpress, this marked increase happened between March 2020 and December, 2021 which was a period where there were enhanced lockdowns in that month. This then started to fall rapidly just after restrictions were eased in early 2022 and has been gradually declining since but remains considerably higher than what it was pre-COVID.
Child and adolescent hospitalization with self-poisoning because of parasuicide has been on the rise in the decade before the pandemic and is the most frequently identified mode of self-harm.
‘These studies indicate that mental health in female teenagers was substantially and adversely affected by the pandemic lockdowns,” said senior author Professor Nicholas Buckley from the University of Sydney School of Pharmacy.
Other variables like social loneliness, family strife and perceived education consequences might surprisingly have even deepened its impact on female adolescents than other subgroups, he explained.
In the six years, the total number of self-poisonings which were reported in Australia was 201,755, and the female gender accounted for 64 percent of the poisonings.
Among them 44 per cent were young people aged between 15 and 19 years, and about 10 per cent were children aged five to 14 years. Overall, there was an elevated rate in deliberate self-poisoning among female children and adolescents by 37% more than males with 11%.
The change was also noticeably higher over jurisdiction, with significantly higher rise in Victoria, Tasmania and New Zealand’s Australian Capital Territory specifically.