TY - JOUR

T1 - COVID-19 lockdown, genetic ADHD susceptibility, and mental health in 10- year-old children

AU - Hernández-lorca, María

AU - Sevelsted, Astrid

AU - Jepsen, Jens Richardt Møllegaard

AU - Pedersen, Casper-Emil T.

AU - Rosenberg, Julie B.

AU - Mohammadzadeh, Parisa

AU - Rasmussen, Morten Arendt

AU - Sørensen, Mikkel Erlang

AU - Bilenberg, Niels

AU - Glenthøj, Birte

AU - Fagerlund, Birgitte

AU - Chawes, Bo

AU - Stokholm, Jakob

AU - Vinding, Rebecca Kofod

AU - Ebdrup, Bjørn H

AU - Bønnelykke, Klaus

PY - 2023

Y1 - 2023

N2 - Previous studies report that the COVID-19 lockdown had an impact on the mental health of the pediatric population. In this study, we harness the deep neuropsychiatric phenotyping of the population-based COPSAC2010 (n= 700) cohort at age 10 to study the impact of the COVID-19 lockdown on mental health outcomes with focus onthe role of the genetic vulnerability to attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), in the form of polygenicrisk scores (PRS). A total of 593 children were examined between 2019 and 2021, resulting in two groups ofdifferent children, those evaluated before the lockdown (n = 230) and those evaluated after (n = 363). Childrenassessed after the lockdown presented higher odds of being diagnosed with ADHD and had significantly higherscores in most neuropsychiatric scales, particularly in subscales pertaining to behavior and attention problems.We observed a significant interaction between the lockdown and ADHD PRS on several neuropsychiatric dimensions, with a large post-lockdown increase in children with a high PRS, while there was little to no pre-postdifference in children with low PRS. These results indicate mental health consequences of the lockdown inchildren and suggest that genetically susceptible individuals are more affected by such stressors in childhood.

AB - Previous studies report that the COVID-19 lockdown had an impact on the mental health of the pediatric population. In this study, we harness the deep neuropsychiatric phenotyping of the population-based COPSAC2010 (n= 700) cohort at age 10 to study the impact of the COVID-19 lockdown on mental health outcomes with focus onthe role of the genetic vulnerability to attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), in the form of polygenicrisk scores (PRS). A total of 593 children were examined between 2019 and 2021, resulting in two groups ofdifferent children, those evaluated before the lockdown (n = 230) and those evaluated after (n = 363). Childrenassessed after the lockdown presented higher odds of being diagnosed with ADHD and had significantly higherscores in most neuropsychiatric scales, particularly in subscales pertaining to behavior and attention problems.We observed a significant interaction between the lockdown and ADHD PRS on several neuropsychiatric dimensions, with a large post-lockdown increase in children with a high PRS, while there was little to no pre-postdifference in children with low PRS. These results indicate mental health consequences of the lockdown inchildren and suggest that genetically susceptible individuals are more affected by such stressors in childhood.

U2 - 10.1016/j.psychres.2023.115481

DO - 10.1016/j.psychres.2023.115481

M3 - Journal article

C2 - 37776756

VL - 329

JO - Psychiatry Research

JF - Psychiatry Research

SN - 0165-1781

M1 - 115481

ER -