Talk on / Discussion on Adolescence, pre and post COVID

SUMMARY

The mental health of adolescents and the plausible consequences of COVID are under debate. There has been an increase in adaptive anxiety and depression, non-suicidal self-harm, a twofold in eating disorders, a rise in addictions and suicidal behaviour in response to emotional dysregulation, as well as a range of behaviours that are not exactly pathological related to such dysregulation. There has been no significant increase in completed suicides. Difficult times have again called into question the importance of a co-ordinated approach to the period of adolescence and its childhood precedents. It is considered that the overflow of specialized mental health systems should be avoided, in favour of an intervention that would strengthen primary prevention with the participation of paediatricians, family doctors, associated with educational institutions that wish to be trained in mental health education and knowledge of strategies to detect and collaborate, as is already the case with conditions such as Autism or Attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder. But also in coping with and acquiring resources to deal with emotional or behavioural issues that arise in their professional setting. Mental health professionals would collaborate in these programmes.

Parents also demand clear rules on how to act in decisions about, for instance, mobile phone use control according to the evolutionary ages or how to face the need for limits, how to communicate in digital times and even how help in common emotional situations. We propose programmes in this scope.