Today is 4 years since the first covid lockdown in 🇬🇧. Amongst many other things (incl. 🧻 supply), we were concerned about how social isolation &loneliness would impact mental health in YP specifically. What did we do then and what has been found now? A 🧵

Back then, we Nina Higson-Sweeney Shirley Reynolds Roz Dr Eleanor Chatburn et al rapidly reviewed the literature to see what was already known about how social isolation and loneliness impact mh in cyp - published v quickly thanks to JAACAP jaacap.org/article/S0890-…

Essentially, what we found was little was known re pandemic context specifically about cyp from general population, but many papers showing cross sectional and also some longitudinal- loneliness is linked to mental health problems esp. depression, also anxiety

Then we published specifically on papers from young people with pre existing mh problems - in same pattern bpspsychub.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/bj… BPS Journals Dr Emily Hards led this one

And using cospace study data thanks Cathy Creswell 💙 Polly Waite 💙 , we also examined loneliness in cyp in uk in early stages of pandemic finding that young people who were more lonely also had more mh symptoms sciencedirect.com/science/articl… thanks Eoin McElroy Dr Bettina Moltrecht on this one!

Now, looking back, more studies including sys reviews have showed (1) mh problems increased for many cyp - trend was there pre pandemic but has continued and is concerning

(2) loneliness increased e.g. we can see this from OxWell Study data from 2020 thanks Mina Fazel Emma Soneson Galit.Geulayov who found more than 1/3 felt more lonely during lockdown pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36124048/

(3) keeping in touch digitally helped a bit but is not the same as face to face

(4) loneliness did decrease on return to school but problems continue and some have struggled to return to school and re engage socially.

My final thought - we need to learn the lessons we can and on future, if we are faced with a need to contain such a threat again, keep schools open as a priority and #playfirst Prof Sam Cartwright-Hatton. & even now, continue to prioritise overcoming loneliness AND improve access to mh help