Mental Health of Adolescents during the Pandemic: Consequences of Social Isolation

With the spread of COVID-19 across the world, closing schools and keeping social-distance have been regarded as the most effective strategy to stop the spread of the pandemic, especially covert infections. The World Health Organization (WHO) reports that since governments closed schools and substituted teaching at home online, more than 1.5 billion children and 90% of global students have remained at home and been relatively isolated from peers, raising concerns about home confinement and isolation, and their psychiatric influence on mental health of adolescents. However, so far, the number of published surveys on the psychological status of adolescents during the epidemic is still limited. This calls for more researches to reveal the influence of COVID-19 and social isolation on the mental status of adolescents and its related risk factors.

The aim of the current Research Topic is to promote the study of the influence of COVID-19 and social isolation on the psychological status of adolescents and its related risk factors, to understand its underlying causes, and to explore its mechanism. To this end, we will also consider the study of mechanisms behind the long-term effects of social isolation.

Through these studies, we can also have a thorough and comprehensive understanding of the mechanisms underlying these phenomena and provide evidence for the formulation of policies and the implementation of psychological interventions.

For example, individual and gender difference in personality are known to influence the insurgence of depression and anxiety. Additionally, some stressful events can alter building blocks in the neural networks and thus cause behavioral or emotional changes. It is still unclear whether this applies to adolescents after long-term home confinement

We welcome quantitative and qualitative research that focus on the psychological status of adolescents and related factors during epidemic.

This Research Topic calls for all types of articles (Original Research, Methods, Reviews, Protocols, Opinion, Perspective,  etc.) that cover, but are not restricted to, the following topics:

·      Prevalence of abnormal psychological and mental status in adolescents (prevalence of depression and anxiety; the survey of sleep quality; the incidence of suicidal thought and behavior);

·      Personal characteristics and their relationship with adolescents mental health:

-The correlation between gender, age, somatic disease, smoking and mental health;

-Personality, psychological resilience and the relationship with mental health;

-Religious beliefs and influences on mental health.

·      The influence of parent-child relationship on adolescents' mental health;

·      The effect of adverse experience (childhood abuse for example) on mental health of adolescents.

·      The potential mechanism of the influence of social isolation on adolescents‘ mental health:

- Research of biomarkers of adolescents during or after isolation;

- Study of animal model of social isolation.