Wisconsin youth health survey shows stress up since COVID-19

MILWAUKEE (AP) — Greater than half of Wisconsin highschool seniors surveyed within the fall of 2021 reported having vital issues with feeling very anxious, nervous, tense, scared or like one thing dangerous was going to occur, in response to a well being threat survey.

Rising numbers of scholars additionally reported signs of melancholy, self-harm and ideas of suicide, in response to the CDC’s Youth Threat Habits Survey launched Tuesday.

The outcomes are the primary image of Wisconsin college students’ psychological well being because the onset of the pandemic, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported. The outcomes have been publicized by the Wisconsin Division of Public Instruction, which referred to as for “drastic motion.”

The Youth Threat Habits Survey goes out each two years to a pattern of colleges throughout the nation chosen to tell county, state and nationwide stories, together with 43 Wisconsin excessive faculties. The nationwide outcomes haven’t but been shared for 2021.

As of fall 2021, about 54% of Wisconsin highschool college students stated they knew at the very least one one who was hospitalized or killed by COVID-19. College students of coloration have been extra prone to know somebody.

About 25% of Wisconsin highschool college students stated their father or mother or one other grownup of their residence misplaced their job throughout the pandemic, out of these whose father or mother or different grownup had a job earlier than the pandemic.

On the similar time, about half of Wisconsin highschool college students stated they labored jobs throughout the pandemic.

In 2017, about 40% of Wisconsin highschool college students stated prior to now 12 months they’d vital issues feeling anxious, nervous, tense, scared or like one thing dangerous was going to occur. That determine rose to 49% in 2019 and 52% in 2021.

About 34% of state excessive schoolers stated within the final 12 months they’d felt so unhappy or hopeless virtually daily for at the very least two weeks in a row that they stopped doing a little ordinary actions — thought of signs of melancholy. That’s up from 29% in 2019.

Charges of self-harm additionally rose, with about 22% of Wisconsin excessive schoolers saying they’d executed one thing to purposely harm themselves prior to now 12 months, with out desirous to die.

About 18% of highschool college students stated they’d severely thought of making an attempt suicide prior to now 12 months, and 9% stated they’d tried — the very best numbers in at the very least a decade.