The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in various challenges for child and adolescent mental health researchers, and particularly for those at the beginning of their career. We emphasise the challenges and opportunities from the individual perspective of trainee psychiatrists, psychologists, and doctoral or post-doctoral scholars in child and adolescent mental health from diverse settings across the globe.
The pandemic has adversely affected the careers of young professionals in child and adolescent mental health research who are often funded by grants and fellowships (usually doctoral and post-doctoral researchers). This is primarily because of the temporary suspension of all grant applications by different funding agencies. Additionally, international research trainees are constrained by difficulties in receiving their work and study permits because of the closure of government facilities.
All forms of intervention studies have been deferred because of the need for physical distancing. Ongoing cohort and longitudinal studies and randomised control trials requiring contact with research participants appear to be the worst affected. Many scientific labs are closed (with staff working from home), halting research programmes including those focused on neurobiology research in child psychiatry. Similarly, school-based studies cannot be continued until schools are fully re-opened.
Allocation of funds by different grant agencies to research projects for COVID-19 could further impede the already under-resourced research in child and adolescent mental health for a long period.
- Fegert JM
- Vitiello B
- Plener PL
- Clemens V
Ethics approval for studies has been delayed with a fast track provision available only for studies associated with COVID-19. Recruitment cannot yet begin for many studies, excluding online studies.
- Fegert JM
- Vitiello B
- Plener PL
- Clemens V
- Liu JJ
- Bao Y
- Huang X
- Shi J
- Lu L
The COVID-19 pandemic has posed a variety of substantial challenges for child mental health researchers at the beginning of their career, but has also resulted in unique opportunities (including acquiring technological skills and formulating new research questions) that we could build on for the future.
We declare no competing interests.
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Published: September 2020
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