The picture of the health effects of the corona pandemic is becoming increasingly clear. The DAK-Gesundheit is now presenting data on how children and young people are doing.
Magdeburg (dpa/sa) - According to the DAK-Gesundheit, young people suffer particularly during the pandemic. Compared to other age groups, mental illnesses and behavioral disorders were diagnosed more frequently in them than before the pandemic, the health insurance company said. New illnesses such as obesity have also increased, as the current child and youth report for Saxony-Anhalt shows. Treatment data from around 18,500 outpatient and inpatient children and adolescents were included in the analysis.
In the second Corona year 2021, fewer children and young people came to doctor's offices and hospitals than before the pandemic. Compared to 2019, there were two percent fewer doctor visits and 18 percent fewer hospital stays. Infectious diseases and respiratory diseases in particular would have played a lesser role. In 2021, eleven percent fewer children and adolescents would have been prescribed drugs than in 2019. According to data from DAK-Gesundheit, the number of antibiotics prescribed fell by 39 percent.
The number of mental illnesses in Saxony-Anhalt has fallen by four percent. With a look at individual diagnoses, however, a differentiated picture emerges. The number of new cases has mostly decreased in younger children. Among young people between the ages of 15 and 17 there have been significant increases. Adjustment disorders, for example, have increased in this age group by 29 percent to 31 cases per 1000 insured persons, emotional disorders by 41 percent to 17 cases per 1000 insured persons. Depression would have increased by 35 percent to around 24 cases per 1000 insured persons.
In 2021, developmental disorders in speech and language were most frequently found in primary school children aged five to nine. However, the new cases in this area, with 50 cases per 1000 children, fell by two percent compared to 2019. Other behavioral disorders and emotional disorders at the beginning of childhood and adolescence had increased by two percent and were found in more than 36 children per 1000 for the first time in 2021 been.
DAK-Gesundheit has also identified more new obesity cases. For boys of primary school age, treatments would have increased by 93 percent in 2021 compared to 2019 to 28 cases per 1000 children. Girls are much less affected at this age. There was a drop of six percent to around 18 cases per 1,000 girls. For older school children up to the age of 14, the numbers have fallen.
The trend is different for 15 to 17-year-old male adolescents. The number of cases of obesity treated by a doctor for the first time increased by 64 percent from 2019 to 2021. There were now 24 cases per 1000 inhabitants. In female adolescents there was an increase of 27 percent to 25 cases per 1000 adolescents.
