First-Year University Students’ Mental Health Trajectories Were Disrupted at the Onset of COVID-19, but Disruptions Were Not Linked to Housing and Financial Vulnerabilities: A Registered Report

This study modeled disruptions in first-year undergraduates’ trajectories of mental health associated with the COVID-19 pandemic, testing whether disruptions were worse for students who moved residences, reported low family income, or were food insecure. Participants ( n = 510) at a large Canadian university reported depression, anxiety, and stress in September, November, January, and March. In March 2020, in tandem with COVID-related campus closures, students also reported for each mental health measure whether their responses were influenced by personal experiences surrounding the pandemic. As hypothesized, students who reported feeling more COVID-related disruption reported poorer mental health in March. Contrary to hypotheses, mental health disruptions were not more pronounced for students who moved, had low income, or were food insecure. Survey administration at an early stage of COVID-19 combined with supports afforded by moving in with parents and near-universal government income assistance may have mitigated the incremental distress we hypothesized for vulnerable students.

Whose mental health declines during economic downturns?

Prior research shows that economic downturns are associated with increases in mental illness. However, we know little about whose mental health is most negatively affected. Is it the young or old, men or women, employed or non-employed, rich or poor? Using an 18-year panel dataset of Australians, we contribute to this understanding by estimating the impact of changes in unemployment on mental health, separately by population subgroups. Our mental health measure captures psychological distress and emotional difficulties, which are often missed by infrequent event indicators such as suicides. We find that young women suffer most during economic downturns. Men and women of older ages are not significantly affected. The effects for young women are driven by those in insecure employment, and those from low socioeconomic backgrounds. Our results suggest that public health programs should emphasize the mental health of young women during economic downturns.

Academic performance in mathematics and reading and self-reported mental health problems in children across Europe

Background The School Children Mental Health Europe was a EU funded project designed to set up a kit of instruments enabling cross EU comparisons. Methods A literature review allows to select the SDQ (Strengths and Difficulties questionnaire) to be administered to the parents and teachers after a validation process in each country and the Dominic Interactive (DI), a sort of video game designed to evaluate DSM more commune diagnoses on children 6 to 11 years old. Results Data were collected on 7682 children randomly selected in a two stages selection: schools by country and children within the schools for whom 1) either parent- or teacher SDQ were completed: Overall, 12.8 % of children have any probable disorder with significant inter-country differences, 8.4 % probable conduct disorder, and 2.0 % probable hyperactivity/inattention. Adjusting for socio-demographic variables and parental psychological distress, country of residence did not predict the odds of having any disorder. 2) Overall, 22.0% of children were identified per their own evaluation as having at least one mental disorder, ranging from 16.4% in the Netherlands to 27.9% in Bulgaria. The prevalence of internalizing disorders was 18.4% across countries and ranged from 11.8% in the Netherlands to 24.3% in Turkey. The prevalence of externalizing disorders was lower with an average of 7.8%, ranging from 3.5% in Turkey to 10.5% in Bulgaria. Combining samples across European countries, 1 in 5 children reported internalizing problems and 1 in 12 children externalizing problems. Conclusions This lecture aims to present and discuss child mental health measure instruments from different informants perspectives, comparisons across countries and the challenges for interpreting the difference.

Comparing children mental health across countries: challenges and results

Background The School Children Mental Health Europe was a EU funded project designed to set up a kit of instruments enabling cross EU comparisons. Methods A literature review allows to select the SDQ (Strengths and Difficulties questionnaire) to be administered to the parents and teachers after a validation process in each country and the Dominic Interactive (DI), a sort of video game designed to evaluate DSM more commune diagnoses on children 6 to 11 years old. Results Data were collected on 7682 children randomly selected in a two stages selection: schools by country and children within the schools for whom 1) either parent- or teacher SDQ were completed: Overall, 12.8 % of children have any probable disorder with significant inter-country differences, 8.4 % probable conduct disorder, and 2.0 % probable hyperactivity/inattention. Adjusting for socio-demographic variables and parental psychological distress, country of residence did not predict the odds of having any disorder. 2) Overall, 22.0% of children were identified per their own evaluation as having at least one mental disorder, ranging from 16.4% in the Netherlands to 27.9% in Bulgaria. The prevalence of internalizing disorders was 18.4% across countries and ranged from 11.8% in the Netherlands to 24.3% in Turkey. The prevalence of externalizing disorders was lower with an average of 7.8%, ranging from 3.5% in Turkey to 10.5% in Bulgaria. Combining samples across European countries, 1 in 5 children reported internalizing problems and 1 in 12 children externalizing problems. Conclusions This lecture aims to present and discuss child mental health measure instruments from different informants perspectives, comparisons across countries and the challenges for interpreting the differences.

Equivalence of Paper and Computer Formats of a Child Self-Report Mental Health Measure

Research examining the equivalence of paper and computer-based adult mental health measures has found mixed results, and this issue has not been explored for child self-report measures. Results from adult studies cannot be generalized to young people, especially taking into consideration research indicating that current generations are more comfortable disclosing sensitive information on computer-based media. This paper investigates the psychometric equivalence of the paper (N = 777) and computer (N = 777) formats of a child and adolescent self-report mental health measure, “Me and My School” (M&MS), completed by school pupils aged 8–14 years. Common practice in equivalence testing has been to use scale-level analysis and factor structure equivalence; the limitation being inability to assess format-based differences at the item-level. We conduct differential item functioning (DIF) analysis to assess whether item-response probability is different based on survey format. Results demonstrate that young people completing the M&MS on paper have lower scale-level overall scores. However, DIF analyses indicate that this difference is not explained by item-level probabilities. The results suggest that survey format equivalence testing of other widely used child and adolescent mental health measures may be necessary before data from different formats are directly compared or combined.