Internalizing problems before and during the COVID-19 pandemic in independent samples of Dutch children and adolescents with and without pre-existing mental health problems

Abstract

The aim of the study was to assess internalizing problems before and during the pandemic with data from Dutch consortium Child and adolescent mental health and wellbeing in times of the COVID-19 pandemic, consisting of two Dutch general population samples (GS) and two clinical samples (CS) referred to youth/psychiatric care. Measures of internalizing problems were obtained from ongoing data collections pre-pandemic (NGS = 35,357; NCS = 4487) and twice during the pandemic, in Apr–May 2020 (NGS = 3938; clinical: NCS = 1008) and in Nov–Dec 2020 (NGS = 1489; NCS = 1536), in children and adolescents (8–18 years) with parent (Brief Problem Monitor) and/or child reports (Patient-Reported Outcomes Measurement Information System®). Results show that, in the general population, internalizing problems were higher during the first peak of the pandemic compared to pre-pandemic based on both child and parent reports. Yet, over the course of the pandemic, on both child and parent reports, similar or lower levels of internalizing problems were observed. Children in the clinical population reported more internalizing symptoms over the course of the pandemic while parents did not report differences in internalizing symptoms from pre-pandemic to the first peak of the pandemic nor over the course of the pandemic. Overall, the findings indicate that children and adolescents of both the general and clinical population were affected negatively by the pandemic in terms of their internalizing problems. Attention is therefore warranted to investigate long-term effects and to monitor if internalizing problems return to pre-pandemic levels or if they remain elevated post-pandemic.