An “epidemic of loneliness”: Covid-19 continues to affect the mental health of young people

Sandrine Prioul (in Nantes), edited by Solène Leroux 06:10, May 06, 2022

REPORT

We discovered it at the exit of the first containment.

The consequences on the mental health of the French have been disastrous, especially among the youngest.

Two years later, the figures for suicide attempts among young people have deteriorated further.

Loneliness, gloomy, lack of perspective… More and more of them have dark thoughts and put themselves in danger.

Depressive states triggered by the Covid-19 crisis and which are claiming increasingly young victims.

In Nantes, a youth suicide prevention center welcomes and supports 15-20 year olds for psychiatric and psychological care.

>> Find Europe Matin in replay and podcast here

They follow cures of about ten days.

"Young people are in difficulty. We have even spoken of an epidemic of loneliness", warns Doctor Rachel Bocher, in her youth suicide prevention unit.

"The pandemic has put the spotlight on young people's mental health, which has been totally forgotten, denied or minimized. Saying of young people: 'Anyway, it will always pass.'"

Deeper psy work in times of crisis

This head of the psychiatry department now wants resources for her team where in particular the psychiatrist Lucie Gaïdra must restrict the age limit for care to 20 years instead of 25, for lack of places.

"It would be necessary for us to have more places. That's what's really complicated, it's that we see that there are a lot of requests and that we can do everything we can. , we cannot necessarily always respond at this moment of the crisis", she laments at the microphone of Europe 1. "However, it is in a moment of the crisis that we work best because it is there are things that are opening up”, assures the psychiatrist.

>> READ ALSO -

 INFORMATION EUROPE 1 - Mental health: 30% of people under 24 have already thought about suicide

A 15 to 20-year-old boy hospitalized every day

These practitioners, like the psychologist Guillaume Pineau, are alerted that in France, only a quarter of young people in distress are taken care of.

According to him, "hearing that things are not going well and that there are things that are possible" can relieve young people.

"We must remember above all that in the suicidal crisis, one of the great difficulties is the feeling of loneliness", he specifies.

"The implementation of the care that we are organizing is also to break this feeling of loneliness and this feeling also of invisibility."

At the Nantes University Hospital, a young person aged 15 to 20 is hospitalized every day.