Teen anxiety and low mood

Anxiety and low mood, in numbers

The figures are WHO’s, from the fact sheet of 1 September 2025 (Global Burden of Disease 2021 data). Anxiety: 4.1% of 10–14-year-olds, 5.3% of 15–19-year-olds. Depression: 1.3% of 10–14-year-olds, 3.4% of 15–19-year-olds. Both rise with age, and both are among the leading causes of illness and disability among adolescents — depression, anxiety and behavioural disorders together. The companion family guide carries the full table, including ADHD, conduct disorder, eating disorders and schizophrenia; this page stays with the two conditions in its title. A percentage describes a population. It does not describe any teenager, and it cannot be used to judge whether a particular teenager is anxious or low.

What raises the risk

WHO names the risk factors at population level: exposure to adversity, violence (especially sexual violence and bullying), harsh parenting, severe socioeconomic problems, peer pressure, identity pressures, media influence, and gender norms. Higher-risk groups include adolescents in humanitarian or fragile settings, adolescents with chronic illness, autism or intellectual disability, pregnant adolescents, orphans, and adolescents from discriminated groups. Parents and teachers meet these factors in ordinary life — a move, a bereavement, a difficult year at school, a family under financial strain — and the list is a reminder that risk is usually several things at once, not one cause. It is not a checklist for judging a child.

Social media and cyberbullying

This section is the home for the gap the research found: social media and cyberbullying. WHO names two risk factors that cover it — media influence, and bullying. Social media is where much of both now happens: peer pressure, identity pressures and bullying increasingly play out on phones, in public, and around the clock, and cyberbullying is bullying that follows a teenager home. This page states that frame and goes no further: it does not rank platforms, it does not give screen-time rules, and it quotes no figure for social media harm, because no verified figure for it was confirmed in the research behind this page. The protective factors in the next section are the other side of the same picture — they are what helps, whatever the source of the pressure.

What protects teenagers

WHO names the protective factors: healthy sleep patterns, regular exercise, coping, problem-solving and interpersonal skills, and managing emotions — in protective and supportive environments in the family, at school, and in the wider community. Promotion and prevention work at several levels: strengthening the capacity to regulate emotions, building resilience, and promoting supportive social environments and networks, delivered through digital media, health and social care, schools and community. UNICEF’s age-banded guidance for families includes, for the 14–18 band, how to start a conversation with a teenager about how they feel; the page links to it rather than repeating it. The schools guide on this site covers what schools themselves can do.

Naming, not screening

This page names conditions. It does not screen, score or triage any teenager. That boundary is deliberate, and it is why this page carries no signs list: the sources parents most often meet — the NSPCC’s guidance, for example — list signs of anxiety and depression in children, and a signs list on this site would edge toward screening, which is outside its scope. The distinction is simple. Awareness says: these conditions exist, this is how common they are, these are the factors that raise or lower risk at population level, and these are the official routes to support. Screening says: this child matches these signs. This site does the first and never the second. For a personal question about a teenager, the routes are a clinician, the teenager’s school, and the official routes in the Wellbeing Support Directory — described in full in the companion guide on finding support for a child.

A note on suicide

Suicide was the second leading cause of death among 15–29-year-olds globally in 2023, with 746,000 deaths that year (WHO suicide fact sheet, published 3 November 2026). The figure is stated here because parents and teachers ask about it, and because the older figure — 727,000 deaths in 2021, third leading cause — is superseded and should not be quoted as current. This page gives no crisis content and no crisis numbers of its own. The Wellbeing Support Directory carries the site’s crisis banner — “If life is in immediate danger, call your local emergency number or go to your nearest emergency department” — and that banner stands unchanged.

Frequently asked questions