Preparing for the COVID-19 paediatric mental health crisis: A focus on youth reactions to caretaker death.

To promote clinician preparedness for working with children and adolescents who lost or will lose a parent or caretaker to COVID-19, findings from a review of the literature concerning youth reactions to parent and caretaker death and incapacitation were integrated with recent and emergent data concerning the COVID-19 pandemic. Children and adolescents who lose a parent or caretaker are at an increased risk of anxiety and depressive reactions and disorders, externalizing and health-risk behaviours, and substance use disorders. Particular aspects of the COVID-19 pandemic may influence these presentations and the risk of complicated grief.