In this Editorial Perspective, we take a systematic look at the overall nature of the Covid-19 related research on mental health in children and young people, to gain insight into the major trends in this area of research and inform future lines of investigation, clinical practices, and policies. By means of state-of-the-art scientometric approaches, we identified 3,692 relevant research outputs, mainly clustering around the following themes: (a) mental health consequences of the Covid-19 pandemic in children and young people; (b) impact of the pandemic on pre-existing psychiatric disorders; (c) family outcomes (i.e., family violence and parental mental health); and (d) link between physical and mental conditions. Only 23% of the retrieved publications reported new data, the remaining ones being reviews, editorials, opinion papers, and other nonempirical reports. The majority of the empirical studies used a cross-sectional design. We suggest that future research efforts should prioritise: (a) longitudinal follow-up of existing cohorts; (b) quasi-experimental studies to gain insight into causal mechanisms underlying pandemic-related psychopathology in children and young people; (c) pragmatic randomised controlled trials (RCTs) to test evidence-based intervention strategies; and (d) evidence-based guidelines for clinicians and policymakers.

中文翻译：

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编辑观点：与 COVID-19 相关的关于年轻人心理健康的出版物——迄今为止的主要趋势是什么以及接下来应该做什么？


在本编辑视角中，我们系统地审视了与 Covid-19 相关的儿童和青少年心理健康研究的整体性质，以深入了解该研究领域的主要趋势，并为未来的调查、临床研究提供信息。做法和政策。通过最先进的科学计量方法，我们确定了 3,692 项相关研究成果，主要围绕以下主题：(a) Covid-19 大流行对儿童和青少年的心理健康影响； (b) 大流行对已有精神疾病的影响； (c) 家庭后果（即家庭暴力和父母心理健康）； (d) 身体和精神状况之间的联系。检索到的出版物中只有 23% 报告了新数据，其余的是评论、社论、观点论文和其他非实证报告。大多数实证研究都采用横断面设计。我们建议未来的研究工作应优先考虑：（a）现有队列的纵向随访； (b) 准实验研究，以深入了解儿童和青少年中流行病相关精神病理学的因果机制； (c) 实用的随机对照试验（RCT），以测试循证干预策略； (d) 为临床医生和决策者提供循证指南。