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Suicide attacks, anxiety, somatization: the mental health of an increasing number of adolescents is deteriorating from Covid-19 and imprisonment, worries Rennes child psychiatry professor Sylvie Tordjman.
What do you observe at the Pôle hospitalo-universitaire de psychiatry de l’Enfant et Adolescente that you manage?
In Rennes, compared to the same period in 2019, we welcome twice as many young patients in pediatric emergency (for the under 16, ed) for suicide crises, three times more for anxiety disorders with somatization (unexplained physical pain) and four times more for anorexic disorders.
Similar observations have been made elsewhere in France by my colleagues, for example at the Robert-Debré hospital (pediatric), in Paris, Nantes and Limoges or in Nice, at the CHU-Lenval Hôpitaux (specialized in paediatrics).
For us, this outbreak is related to re-containment. Data has remained stable in Rennes in recent months, compared to the same period in 2019, including the month of October.
Beyond the greater number of young patients, are the cases more severe?
“Abnormally high hanging and resort to defenestration”
In suicide attempts, there is an unusually high use of hanging and defenestration. Additionally, all young people between the ages of 16 and 18 were admitted to a short-term inpatient unit in November 2019, then returned home with outpatient follow-ups. There, out of 11 young people admitted between 1 and 12 November 2020, only three of them were able to go home with an outpatient follow-up. All the others were hospitalized long-term for severe depression with risk of suicidal recurrence.
For anorexics, we observe the same aggravation. Usually, girls with anorexia never go to the pediatric emergency room. There they arrive in states of malnutrition and dehydration. They stop eating and drinking and this raises questions about possible suicidal tendencies. I am in a much more serious condition than usual that does not correspond to the usual modalities of anorexia. The same observation was made in Robert-Debré as well as in the pediatric emergencies of the CHUs of Toulouse and Rouen.
Usually, in the first half of November, we have at most one hospitalization for anorexia in Rennes. Six teenage girls under 16 were hospitalized in the first week of November this year. Three of them were discharged last week but were later replaced by three new patients, with a total of six permanently occupied beds.
Is reconfirmation enough to explain this surge and what can relatives do?
“Decrease in social, sporting and cultural activities”
We might be surprised by these figures because schoolchildren, college students and high school students are being educated 50% face to face. But the general reconfiguration leads to a decrease in social, sports, cultural, etc. activities. It is also a closed door that can further expose these young people to intra-family violence.
Furthermore, reconfirmation is an event that repeats itself and prevents us from projecting into the future, starting from the Christmas holidays. All this leads to a form of chronic stress, reinforced by social insecurity caused by confinement, attacks, the effect of seasonality (winter).
It is important that parents respect and enforce their children physiological rhythms with regular times for going to bed, getting up, eating meals, as well as physical and social activities. Beware of screen addiction! The desynchronization of biological clocks leads, according to many studies, to a vulnerability to anxiety, depressive and psychotic disorders that could help explain these abnormally increased emergency visits.
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