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Alarming changes in the global burden of mental disorders in children and adolescents from 1990 to 2019: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease study

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Abstract

Mental disorders account for a large and increasing health burden worldwide, as shown in the Global Burden of Diseases (GBD) Study 2010. Unpacking how this burden in children and adolescents varies with sex, geographical regions, and ethnicities and how it has changed in the last 3 decades are important to improve the existing public health policies and prevention strategies. The study was conducted using GBD 2019 database. The burden of children and adolescents’ (< 20 years old) mental disorders was displayed as prevalence, incidence, disability-adjusted life-years (DALYs), years of life lost, and years lived with disability globally between 1990 and 2019. The number of DALYs in children and adolescents diagnosed with mental disorders was 21.5 million (95% CI: 15.2–29.6 million) in 2019. From 1990 to 2019, the age-standardized rates of DALYs of mental disorders increased from 803.8 per 100,000 (95% CI: 567.7–1104.3 per 100,000) to 833.2 per 100,000 (95% CI: 589.0–1146.1 per 100,000) population. Over the past 30 years, there had been a huge increase in the number of individuals suffering from anxiety disorders, major depressive disorders, and conduct disorders including an alarming increase in the rate of eating disorders such as 24.3% in bulimia nervosa and 17.0% in anorexia nervosa. Globally, 8.8% of children and adolescents have been diagnosed with varieties of mental illnesses, accounting for a heavy disease burden on public health. Besides, the worldwide increasing rates of anxiety disorders, major depressive disorders, and eating disorders have brought considerable challenges to public health undertakings, for which further prevention and treatment countermeasures are urgently needed.

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Abbreviations

The GBD study:

The Global Burden of Diseases study

WMH Survey:

World Mental Health Survey

DSM:

The American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders

ICD:

International Classification of Diseases

YLLs:

Years of life lost

YLDs:

Years lived with disability

DALYs:

Disability-adjusted life-years

SDI:

Socio-demographic index

UI:

Uncertainty interval

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Acknowledgements

We highly appreciate the work by the GBD 2019 collaborators.

Funding

This work was supported by a National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) grant (Grant No: 82000754) to Dr. He Xue, a Youth Backbone Support Program of China Medical University (QGZD2018013) to Dr. He Xue, and a Jilin health talent grant (Grant No: JLSWSRCZX2021-037) to Dr. Piao Jianmin. The funders played no role in study design, data collection and analysis, the decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. The corresponding author had full access to all the data and had final responsibility for the decision to submit for publication.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Neurosurgery, The First Hospital of Jilin University, Changchun, Jilin, China

    Jianmin Piao

  2. Department of Endocrinology, the Second Affiliated Hospital of Fujian Medical University, Quanzhou, 36000, China

    Yinqiong Huang

  3. Department of Clinical Nutrition and Metabolism, Affiliated Zhongshan Hospital of Dalian University, Dalian, Liaoning, China

    Cheng Han, Yike Li, Yanbing Xu & Yazhuo Liu

  4. Center of Health Management, Affiliated Zhongshan Hospital of Dalian University, Dalian, Liaoning, China

    Cheng Han, Yike Li, Yanbing Xu & Yazhuo Liu

  5. Department of Laboratory Medicine, The First Affiliated Hospital of China Medical University, Shenyang, Liaoning, China

    Xue He

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  1. Jianmin Piao
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Correspondence to Xue He.

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Piao, J., Huang, Y., Han, C. et al. Alarming changes in the global burden of mental disorders in children and adolescents from 1990 to 2019: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease study. Eur Child Adolesc Psychiatry 31, 1827–1845 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00787-022-02040-4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00787-022-02040-4

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