As the coronavirus pandemic dragged through its second year, an increasing number of American families were so desperate to get help for depressed or suicidal children that they brought them to emergency rooms.
A large-scale analysis of private insurance claims shows that this surge in acute mental health crises was driven largely by a single group — girls aged 13 to 17.
During the second year of the pandemic, there was a 22 percent increase in teenage girls who visited emergency rooms with a mental health emergency compared with a prepandemic baseline, with rises in patients with suicidal behavior and eating disorders, according to the study of 4.1 million patients published on Wednesday in JAMA Psychiatry.
During the same period, March 2021 to March 2022, the records showed a 9 percent drop in teenage boys who made emergency room visits for mental health problems.
E.R. Visits for Teenage Girls Surged During the Pandemic
