The proportion of teen girls visiting emergency rooms in mental health crisis rose 22 percent in the pandemic’s second year, while the proportion of teen boys visiting declined.
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, according to the study of 4.1 million patients published on Wednesday in JAMA Psychiatry. The rise was associated with an increase in suicidal and self-harming behavior and with eating disorders.
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. Overall, the proportion of young people who made an emergency room visit related to mental health increased 7 percent over a prepandemic baseline. The study was based on privately insured Americans, and does not capture what was happening in Medicaid or uninsured households.