Canadian teens still struggling with mental health even as pandemic wanes

When 16-year-old Abbey Keays thinks back to the early days of the pandemic — the lockdowns and online schooling — she can't help but reflect on what she and other teens have lost.

"During the pandemic, I personally felt a lot of negative emotions and some issues with my mental health," she said in an interview from her home in Hamilton, Ont.

"I think it's because we lost so much of what we were hoping our life to be."

Three years later, even as the pandemic wanes, Keays said she sees a lot of teens still struggling. 

Clinicians say their needs continue to outweigh the services available to help.

"If you look at the different studies done since COVID-19, there has been a crisis — a mental health crisis — impacting children and youth," said Dr. Stacey Bélanger, an expert in pediatric mental health at Sainte-Justine Hospital in Montreal.

Bélanger, who is on the Canadian Pediatric Society's mental health task force, said pediatric centres have seen increases in hospitalizations and emergency room visits for mental health conditions such as eating disorders, anxiety and suicide attempts since the pandemic began.

"The needs were there before the pandemic and have definitely been increased since the pandemic," Bélanger said. "And I can't say we are anywhere near where we should be today to provide the services we should be providing to young people."

In the U.S., data from the Centers for Disease Control suggests American teens' mental health has been worsening since 2011 and that continued in the pandemic.

According to its latest Youth Risk Behaviour Survey, there have been increases in the percentage of students who:

Teen girls and LGBQ students (the survey did not include data specifically on students who identify as transgender) were particularly affected, with 60 percent of female students and 70 percent of LGBQ students feeling persistently sad or hopeless when the survey was taken in 2021.

Canadian studies have shown a similar imbalance.

Melissa Généreux, a public health physician in Sherbrooke, Que., noted a gender discrepancy in her recent survey of young people in Quebec.

Girls, transgender and non-binary teens reported higher rates of symptoms of anxiety and depression than boys.