In the 2020 pandemic, fewer school children received treatment for excessive alcohol consumption. A report by the DAK also provides information about depression and obesity in children.
Hamburg – In the corona pandemic year 2020, according to a study, significantly fewer school children received medical treatment for excessive alcohol consumption. This emerges from the current report for children and young people from DAK-Gesundheit.
According to this, the number of children and adolescents who received medical treatment for alcohol abuse in hospitals or medical practices fell by 28 percent compared to 2019. The study also shows a decline in tobacco, cannabis and other drugs: In 2020, a total of 18 percent fewer children received medical care for substance abuse. According to the report, however, the number of depressed adolescents has increased.
800,000 children and young people in the report
The health insurance company wants to present the report this Tuesday, it was available to the German press agency in advance. For the report, scientists from Bielefeld University examined anonymized billing data from around 800,000 children and adolescents up to the age of 17 who are insured with DAK-Gesundheit.
The president of the professional association of paediatricians, Thomas Fischbach, attributed the decline in drug consumption to family conditions during the pandemic. It could “also be related to the fact that parents were busy with themselves so that fewer problems were noticed in the children and therefore were treated less,” he said, according to a statement.
Depression data
The data on depression show that eight percent more adolescents between the ages of 15 and 17 were newly diagnosed with depression. In late adolescence, girls were three times as likely to be treated for depression as boys of the same age.
On the other hand, there was almost 12 percent less depression in the group of 5 to 12 year olds. According to the report, this age group had significantly more new cases of obesity. Compared to the previous year, there were 16 percent more primary school children who were newly diagnosed with obesity. The number remained constant among older teenagers. dpa
