More Images
During the pandemic, there was a significant increase in vitamin D deficiency in pediatric patients with major depressive disorder, in new findings that suggest spending more time indoors may have fueled this uptick.

"We suspect that this may be due to the COVID lockdowns and kids schooling from home and having less time outside," study investigator Oluwatomiwa Babade, MD, MPH, with Virginia Tech Carilion School of Medicine in Roanoke, Virginia, told Medscape Medical News.

The study was presented at the American Psychiatric Association (APA) 2023 Annual Meeting.

During the pandemic, investigators noticed an uptick in the number of children and adolescents attending their clinic for psychiatric hospitalization who had low vitamin D levels.

To investigate, they analyzed the records of all patients aged 6-17 years with psychiatric diagnoses and vitamin D level assessment who were admitted into the inpatient psychiatry unit from March 18, 2020, to June 30, 2021. Head over to Medscape to read the full story.