Impact of covid-19 pandemic on mental health and health behaviors in ukranian adolescents

Abstract

Introduction. The COVID-19 pandemic, caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), is of a scale not seen since the 1918 influenza pandemic. Today in Ukraine and the world, although the predominant clinical presentation is with respiratory disease, neurological manifestations are being recognised increasingly. Anxiety, depressive disorders and suicides among people of all ages who have suffered from COVID-19 have recently increased. These features appear to be a combination of non-specific complications of systemic disease, the effects of direct viral infection, or inflammation of the nervous system and vasculature, which can be para-infectious or post-infectious. Being in isolation is a serious psychological overload for children and adolescents, which can affect the state of their nervous system.