ER visits for attempted suicide up 22 per cent among youth during COVID-19 pandemic: study

A young woman in distress is comforted by another. (Liza Summer/Pexels)

Emergency room visits for attempted suicide rose by more than 20 per cent among children and youth worldwide during the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a new Canadian-led study.

The study, published in Lancet Psychiatry, shows that although there was a 32 per cent reduction in pediatric emergency department visits for any health-related reasons during the pandemic, there was a 22 per cent increase in children and adolescents going to the ER for suicide attempts. Hospitals also reported an eight per cent increase in visits for suicide ideation.

"This is like a really problematic indicator. These are kids who are showing up at the emergency department during a pandemic, when nobody was coming for any health issue, and they were so distressed and their families were so distressed that they still showed up," Dr. Tracy Vaillancourt of the University of Ottawa, co-author of the study, told CTV News Ottawa.

"I think that speaks volumes to how problematic it was for them, their experiences during the pandemic."

The study, led out of the University of Calgary, was co-authored with researchers from the University of Ottawa, CHEO, Toronto's SickKids Hospital and University College Dublin. It provides a meta-analysis of 42 studies representing over 11 million pediatric emergency department visits across 18 countries, comparing the data on visits prior to the pandemic with those that took place during the pandemic, up to July 2021.

Researchers say proven risk factors for mental illness for children and adolescents increased dramatically during the COVID-19 pandemic, noting screen time increased while physical activity levels declined, and the mental health of parents deteriorated.

"These are all accelerants to mental distress," Dr. Sheri Madigan of the University of Calgary said in a statement. "Children have an ability to show resilience in difficult times, but they were pushed past what is tolerable, beyond their capacity-to-cope threshold. And now, far more kids and teens are in crisis than was the case before the pandemic."

A study led by a similar team in the summer of 2021 found that depression and anxiety symptoms doubled in children and adolescents during the first year of the pandemic.

Vaillancourt, Canada Research Chair – School-Based Mental Health and Violence Prevention at uOttawa, says when we look at the resilience of children, we need to assess whether their "protective factors match their risk factors".

"During the pandemic, a lot of their protective factors were challenged; so for example we know that screen time increased, physical activity decreased, a lot of them experienced school closures, there was a lot of death and illness around them, so the stress of the pandemic in terms of broader strokes, they were exposed to more family violence," Vaillancourt said.

"All of those protective factors, like when those are reduced they do better, and those were elevated so we should probably expect that the kids aren't going to do alright.

"On average, it seems they didn't do as well and that's probably to be expected."

Researchers say there is a need for increased mental health supports for children and youth, including government investment in community resources and infrastructure to support the identification and treatment of mental illness, as well as school programs.

"I think it highlights we need to be putting services in place really quickly," Vaillancourt said.

"We should be thinking about this in earnest and putting resources toward it and thinking about how we're going to be better prepared for another pandemic because it's going to happen. We need to make sure that we have services in place and targeted very well to help children and families."

CTV News has compiled a list of crisis hotlines across Canada, as well as resources on mental health counselling.