key: cord-0289184-t0qp1kuu
authors: Wu, Z.; Xiang, Z.; Zou, Z.; Liu, Z.; Chen, X.; Long, Y.
title: Increasing trends in mental health problems among Chinese young adolescents: results from repeated cross-sectional data in Changsha 2016-2020
date: 2021-12-05
journal: nan
DOI: 10.1101/2021.12.04.21267298
sha: 3c80b96d21b12dd0ccf68b3b1be4c7cf6374b5b8
doc_id: 289184
cord_uid: t0qp1kuu

This study performed a repeated cross-sectional analysis to explore possible trends in mental health problems among Chinese adolescents during 2016-2020. A total of 2837 seventh-grade students from Changsha city were surveyed in three waves in 2016, 2019 and 2020. The results showed that obsessive-compulsive tendencies, interpersonal sensitivity, depression, anxiety, academic stress and emotional disturbance problems were significantly increased in surveyed adolescents during 2016-2020. Moreover, positive rates of most of these problems were higher in females than males, and were significantly increased in only females. These results highlight the importance of focusing on mental health among Chinese adolescents, especially girls.

Second, most of them only focused on a single dimension of mental health such as 60 depression or anxiety, while a more comprehensive survey in multiple dimensions is 61 rare. Third, most of these studies are cross-temporal meta-analyses, which pooled 62 previous studies using the same mental health assessing instruments (e.g., Self-rating 63 Depression Scale (Su and Liu, 2020)) together. However, such an approach may not be 64 able to fully address the potential bias caused by regional diversity (e.g., the pooled 65 studies were across different provinces in China with different economic and 66 educational levels (Su and Liu, 2020)).

In this study, we performed a repeated cross-sectional analysis to overcome the 68 above limitations. Repeated cross-sectional studies utilize the same instruments and 69 . CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 International license It is made available under a perpetuity.

is the author/funder, who has granted medRxiv a license to display the preprint in (which was not certified by peer review) preprint

The copyright holder for this this version posted December 5, 2021. ; https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.12.04.21267298 doi: medRxiv preprint methodologies in the same population over multiple time timepoints; therefore, they 70 were thought to be most suitable for investigating trends of mental health statuses over is the author/funder, who has granted medRxiv a license to display the preprint in (which was not certified by peer review) preprint

The copyright holder for this this version posted December 5, 2021. rates of all subscales were further compared between males and females using Chi-105 square test; significance of trends were also tested in males and females separately. 

Demographic and mental health characteristics of students in each wave were 109 shown in Table 1 . There was no significant difference in sex ratio among the three is the author/funder, who has granted medRxiv a license to display the preprint in (which was not certified by peer review) preprint

The copyright holder for this this version posted December 5, 2021. ; https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.12.04.21267298 doi: medRxiv preprint

In this study, we performed a repeated cross-sectional analysis to explore the is the author/funder, who has granted medRxiv a license to display the preprint in (which was not certified by peer review) preprint

The copyright holder for this this version posted December 5, 2021. ; https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.12.04.21267298 doi: medRxiv preprint

In this study, we found that positive rates of multiple mental health problems were 163 significantly increased during 2016-2020 in a group of surveyed adolescents in 164 Changsha city, China. Moreover, positive rates of most of these problems were found 165 to be significantly higher in females than males, and significantly increased during We would like to thank all the subjects who served as research participants. is the author/funder, who has granted medRxiv a license to display the preprint in (which was not certified by peer review) preprint

The copyright holder for this this version posted December 5, 2021. ; https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.12.04.21267298 doi: medRxiv preprint is the author/funder, who has granted medRxiv a license to display the preprint in (which was not certified by peer review) preprint is the author/funder, who has granted medRxiv a license to display the preprint in (which was not certified by peer review) preprint

The copyright holder for this this version posted December 5, 2021. ; https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.12.04.21267298 doi: medRxiv preprint is the author/funder, who has granted medRxiv a license to display the preprint in (which was not certified by peer review) preprint

The copyright holder for this this version posted December 5, 2021. ; https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.12.04.21267298 doi: medRxiv preprint

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. CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 International license It is made available under a perpetuity.is the author/funder, who has granted medRxiv a license to display the preprint in (which was not certified by peer review) preprintThe copyright holder for this this version posted December 5, 2021. ; https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.12.04.21267298 doi: medRxiv preprint https://doi.org/10.1007/s10964-017-0678-4 214 Luo, Y., Cui, Z., Zou, P., Wang, K., Lin, Z., He, J., Wang, J., 2020. Mental health 215 problems and associated factors in chinese high school students in henan is the author/funder, who has granted medRxiv a license to display the preprint in (which was not certified by peer review) preprintThe copyright holder for this this version posted December 5, 2021. is the author/funder, who has granted medRxiv a license to display the preprint in (which was not certified by peer review) preprint is the author/funder, who has granted medRxiv a license to display the preprint in (which was not certified by peer review) preprintThe copyright holder for this this version posted December 5, 2021. ; https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.12.04.21267298 doi: medRxiv preprint