Depressive symptoms in youth before and during the COVID-19 pandemic: longitudinal investigation of patterns dependent on age, sex, and family history of mental illness.

Our results provide reassurance about the wellbeing of children of parents with mental illness during a period of restricted access to resources outside the family. Rather than increasing symptoms in established risk groups, the pandemic led to a redistribution of depression burden towards segments of the youth population that were previously considered to be low-risk.