Publication date: Jun 01, 2025

During previous disasters, youth with existing mental health diagnoses have been especially vulnerable to negative mental health outcomes. Yet, longitudinal outcomes for these youth during the COVID-19 pandemic have not been well-studied. In addition, potential protective factors that may buffer this enhanced risk in the context of the pandemic also need to be explored. Thus, this longitudinal study investigates if having a self-reported learning, cognitive, and/or psychological disorder diagnosis placed adolescents at greater risk for trauma symptomology over the first full academic year (2020-21) of the COVID-19 pandemic, and if this relationship was moderated by peer or family support. To answer this question, we collected four waves of data from youth (M age = 14. 63) in one province in Western Canada over the 2020/21 school year (N = 1,227). Trauma symptomology was assessed using the Child Revised Impacts of Events Scale (CRIES-13). We used multivariate linear regression to assess if an existing learning, cognitive, and/or psychological disorder diagnosis was associated with trauma symptomatology in June 2021, controlling for symptoms in September 2021, and to explore potential moderation by peer and family support. We found that youth who had an existing learning, cognitive, and/or psychological disorder diagnosis reported significantly higher trauma symptomatology across the 2020/21 academic year, as compared to youth without a diagnosis, but that there was no moderation by peer or family support. Our results suggest that a small but significant subset of youth who were at risk for poor mental health outcomes prior to the pandemic remain vulnerable and require access to ongoing school psychology supports to promote their mental well-being.

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