Background
COVID-19 brought significant changes to the daily lives of children, young people, and families, including school closures, reduced access to clubs and activities, socially distanced interactions, and concerns about the health and wellbeing of loved ones. The impact of COVID-19 on children’s mental health, particularly over the longer term, is not fully understood.
While rapidly developed surveys have helped to explore aspects of this issue, those based on convenience samples cannot provide the prevalence estimates required by policymakers and commissioners. This project addresses this gap by using a large, nationally representative probability sample with comprehensive pre-pandemic data and well-characterised social context information, enabling analysis of inequalities and identification of children with additional needs.
Children and young people (aged 14–22), and parents of 5–19-year-olds who had previously consented to be re-contacted, were invited to take part in interviews and/or use a mobile application designed to monitor mood and wellbeing.
Project Aims
The wider project aimed to track children and young people’s mental health and wellbeing over the course of the pandemic. It included three waves of follow-up with participants from the Mental Health of Children and Young People in England 2017 (MHCYP) survey who consented to re-contact. These waves combined validated measures (such as the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire), repeated baseline measures, and new COVID-19-related questions.
The follow-up waves were accompanied by additional research collecting further data through interviews and a co-designed mobile application to track mental health over time.
The project addressed the following research questions:
- How do mood and experiences of stressful events fluctuate day-to-day among young people during and after the COVID-19 pandemic, and what influences this?
- What were the experiences of children and young people with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) and their families during the pandemic?
- What is the prevalence of eating disorders, disordered eating behaviours, and comorbid anxiety and depression among participants who screened positive, and what were their experiences and coping strategies during the pandemic?
- How did children and young people’s mental health change between July 2020 and summer 2021, including prevalence of mental disorder, emotional and behavioural difficulties, wellbeing, help-seeking behaviour, and educational experiences?
Outputs and Papers/resources
This project used a large, nationally representative sample with rich pre-pandemic data to examine how children, young people, and their parents coped during lockdown, and to identify those with additional needs.
RESHAPE podcast series - https://www.acamh.org/podcasts/reshape-study-young-peoples-lockdown-experiences/
Papers:
Newlove-Delgado, T., McManus, S., Sadler, K., Thandi, S., Vizard, T., Cartwright, C., Ford, T., & Mental Health of Children and Young People group (2021). Child mental health in England before and during the COVID-19 lockdown. The lancet. Psychiatry, 8(5), 353–354. https://doi.org/10.1016/S2215-0366(20)30570-8 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8824303/
Mathews, F., Ford, T.J., White, S. et al. Children and young people’s reported contact with professional services for mental health concerns: a secondary data analysis. Eur Child Adolesc Psychiatry 33, 2647–2655 (2024).
https://doi.org/10.1007/s00787-023-02328-z
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00787-023-02328-z
Cross, L., Carey, E., Benham-Clarke, S., Hartley, A., Mathews, F., Burn, A. M., … Ford, T. (2024). Navigating changes: reflecting on children and young people’s experiences of public health and social measures during the COVID-19 pandemic- a purposive, qualitative follow-up from a national probability sample. Emotional and Behavioural Difficulties, 29(1–2), 18–35. https://doi.org/10.1080/13632752.2024.2360778
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13632752.2024.2360778?scroll=top&needAccess=true#abstract
Who was involved?
PI and corresponding researcher
Tamsin Ford, PhD
Professor of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry
Department of Psychiatry, University of Cambridge
Tamsin Newlove Delgado, PhD
Senior Clinical Lecturer and Honorary Consultant in Public Health,
University of Exeter
Dr Johnny Downs, PhD
Senior Clinical Lecturer
Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, King’s College London
Sally McManus PhD
Natcen Associate
Department of Health and Social Care, National Centre for Social Research
Katherine Sadler, PhD
Research Director,
Department of Health and Biomedical Research, National Centre for Social Research
Tim Vizard, PhD
Prinicipal Research Officer
Office for National Statistics
Lauren Cross, MPhil
Research Assistant
Department of Psychiatry, University of Cambridge
Frances Mathews, MRes
Research Assistant
College of Medicine and Health, University of Exeter
Ginny Russell, PhD
Senior Lecturer, University of Exeter
Shelley Norman, PhD
Research Associate, University of Exeter
Jessica O’Logbon
Mphil Candidate, University of Cambridge
Alex Hartley,
BSc Placement Student, University of Bath (Under the Supervision of Prof Tamsin Ford)
Simon Benham-Clarke, MSc
Research assistant, University of Exeter
Raven Jorgensen, MSc,
Medical Student Intern, University of Exeter (supervised by Dr Newlove-Delgado)
Dr Katie Sales,
Academic Clinical Fellow in Paediatrics, University of Exeter (supervised by Dr Newlove-Delgado)
Additional members of the study team who will contribute to interviews and analysis
Faith Adeyemi
BSc Placement Student, University of Bath (Under the Supervision of Prof Tamsin Ford) –
Aslihan Başer, MSc
Research Assistant, University of Cambridge
Clara Faria MPhil student and research assistant, University of Cambridge
Mathew Severyn MPhil student, University of Cambridge
Contact
tjf52@medschl.cam.ac.uk
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