YoungMinds survey
We can all take a good guess that young people might be struggling with mental health more than ever in the COVID-19 pandemic. Usefully, in March and again in June-July, YoungMinds carried out a survey on young people who had particular mental health needs. Both surveys captured over 2,000 responses of young people. The second survey in June-July was answered by young people aged 13-25.
We created an area chart to show their responses in the two periods.
The infographic
The take away
The overall message is clear and sobering. The overwhelming majority, 4 in 5 of those young people with mental health needs said that their mental health was either ‘worse’ or ‘much worse’ than before the coronavirus pandemic started. What’s interesting is that while the overall proportion of those feeling that COVID19 had negatively impacted on their mental health stayed roughly the same between March and months later, the chart shows that the chunk of those saying ‘much worse’ slopes upwards. This means that a greater proportion of young people were in the ‘much worse’ camp by the end so the severity of those negatively impacted by COVID19 increased.
A small proportion – around just 1 in 10 young people said they felt that their mental health had had improved in the pandemic.
You might be interested in other posts about COVID19. For infographics on the subject of mental health see 13 reasons for teen counselling and how young people feel their support network dwindles with age.
