Gender specific mental health among adolescents in Northern Italy: a cross-sectional study

Recent studies show that the prevalence of many adolescents' mental health problems worsened during the pandemic, and improved recently, but is still higher than before the pandemic. The assessment of post-pandemic gender-specific mental health issues and their relation to global crises are of current interest.

A repeated cross-sectional design screened self-reported mental health in terms of anxiety, depression, and general mental disorders of 11-19 years aged students in South Tyrol, North Italy four times between 2021 and 2025 using standardized instruments. The study was representative for age and gender, screening was done for the whole population, not regarding the same participants in all four surveys.

A total of 1,471 questionnaires were evaluated in 2025, nearly 11% of the participants were screened positively for depression and 28% for anxiety. While percentages were the same in all 4 years for anxiety, we found a decreasing trend for depression. About 40% of females in 2025 were screened positively for at least one mental health problem, for males the percentage was about 27%. The difference was significant. About 45% of the positively screened cases were screened positively by more than one instrument, while the percentage was 35% for males. The most important, non-gender-dependent associated factors were school stress, crises-related stress, and problematic Internet use. Low/medium health literacy and single parenthood were predictors of mental health problems among girls. Less sleep and less physical activity were significant factors.

Gender specific mental health problems in adolescents are still high post-pandemically. Mental health interventions, focusing on gender-specific requirements, are needed in the light of new global crises. Educational settings should integrate preventive strategies and health literacy programs based on existing experiences and continually collected new data.