Depression and Anxiety in Adolescents During the COVID-19 Pandemic in Relation to Use of Digital Technologies in the Scamp Longitudinal Cohort

Change, Adversity, and Adaptation: Young People’s Experience of the COVID-19 Pandemic Expressed through Artwork and Semi-structured Interviews

“…It has high socioeconomic and ethnic diversity and represents a wide range of demographics and communities in Greater London and the surrounding areas [15]. We conducted a qualitative study with a sub-sample of the SCAMP cohort to understand their experiences of the COVID-19 pandemic and to contextualise and elucidate our quantitative findings [9]. This included creative workshops and one-to-one interviews.…”

“…Quantitative research in the SCAMP cohort has found high and increased rates of anxiety and depression during the lockdown period, especially for girls, people with prior sleep difficulties, and people with high prior technology use [9]. Qualitative insights can help elucidate this partial picture.…”

“…Psychotic symptoms in young people also increased during the COVID-19 pandemic [4,5]. Research has highlighted the detrimental roles of home-school related stress and social isolation, and the importance of technology for keeping young people connected [1,[6][7][8][9]. Systematic reviews and mixed methods research have highlighted some positive impacts of the pandemic for young people, such as new opportunities for connection, selfcare, and reflection, suggesting the impacts were not unilaterally negative [1,3,8].…”

“…Increased levels of depression and anxiety compared to pre-pandemic levels were found the London based longitudinal cohort Study of Adolescents, Cognition and Mobile phones (SCAMP) [9]. Comparing survey measures taken during the pandemic to measures from before the pandemic, new incident depression and anxiety were more common in girls, and new incident depression was more common in participants who had higher phone use and poorer sleep quality at earlier timepoints [9].…”

“…Increased levels of depression and anxiety compared to pre-pandemic levels were found the London based longitudinal cohort Study of Adolescents, Cognition and Mobile phones (SCAMP) [9]. Comparing survey measures taken during the pandemic to measures from before the pandemic, new incident depression and anxiety were more common in girls, and new incident depression was more common in participants who had higher phone use and poorer sleep quality at earlier timepoints [9]. To enrich our quantitative research, we conducted a nested qualitative study to understand in greater depth and detail young people's experiences of the COVID-19 pandemic and lockdowns, particularly focusing on their mental health and wellbeing.…”