A recent report published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal found an increase in hospital visits among adolescents, especially female teens, for mental health crises in Canada during the pandemic, highlighting one more time the gaping need for adequate support at all levels to address adolescent mental health.
Experts mention multiple reasons, including lack of awareness among parents and doctors, limited access to support services and stigma contributing to the predicament.
The report mentions "quarterly change in the percentage of hospital admissions for suicidal ideation, self-poisoning and self-harm increased among adolescent females in Canada during the first two years of the COVID-19 pandemic. This underscores the need to promote public health policies that mitigate the impact of the pandemic on adolescent mental health.
"During the pandemic, there was a decline in the number of youth coming to the hospital for general mental health issues, but there has been an increase in demand specifically for treatment of eating disorders," Halton Healthcare's spokesperson said, when contacted.
Halton Healthcare has a Child & Adolescent Psychiatric Inpatient Service located at Oakville Trafalgar Memorial Hospital and also offers outpatient mental health services for children and youth.
A young person experiencing a mental health crisis signifies an extremely overwhelmed state and an inability to cope, in the words of Jessica MacDonald, a registered social worker and mental health practitioner in Oakville, irrespective of gender.
She referred to multiple research works deducing that child and adolescent mental health is a predictor of adult mental health, can have intergenerational impacts, and has costly healthcare impacts from comorbid adult ailments.
MacDonald helps her clients with parenting, relationships and trauma and emphasizes the increased awareness and support for youth mental health and a focus on preventive measures to reduce crisis occurrences.
The social worker believes that stigma, limited awareness, cost, access barriers, and system complexity delay mental health support, often until a crisis arises.
She pointed out how crucial systemic changes are for addressing youth mental health: "In Ontario, recent strides have been made in pediatric prescription and dental coverage; adding mental health funds to this list of preventive, routine, and emergency care would be substantial."
Regarding the role of parental counselling in addressing these challenges, she said research indicates that youth/teens who receive support, particularly when combined with parental counselling, experience more significant immediate and long-term mental health benefits.
Lack of formal youth mental health training before becoming a parent leaves parents often feeling unprepared and helpless, which magnifies during times of crisis.
She encourages parents to develop mental health literacy, talk about challenges age-appropriately, advocate for these issues and even get therapy to help themselves as caregivers.
Speaking about the long waitlist for therapists, Dimple Arora, an Oakville-based life coach, said parents often don't "realize that there are other mental health support services available such as school guidance counsellors, teen mentors and life coaches." She also pointed out that parents and doctors often ignore the connection between "mental health, sleep, screen time, nutritional deficiencies and gut health."
Arora, an author, nutritionist and podcaster, primarily works with moms and their teen daughters.
Speaking of the role of unresolved trauma in causing mental health issues and the increase in hospital visits during the pandemic, she said, "Parents who have not dealt with their own emotions and traumas are projecting them onto their children, making it very difficult for teens living at home to stay emotionally regulated."
Arora believes hormonal imbalances due to menstruation, social media pressure to have the perfect body image, lack of sleep, and the innate tendency to seek social support for their issues are also contributing factors for teenage girls to have more mental health crises.