UNICEF and University of Seville barometer: loneliness and sadness among Spanish teens rise since 2018
Emotional wellbeing among Spanish 12 to 16 year olds fell after 2018, according to a barometer by UNICEF España and the University of Seville, with girls and students from lower-income families hit hardest.
A decline since 2018
UNICEF España and the University of Seville presented the Barómetro de Opinión de la Infancia y la Adolescencia 2024-2026 on Thursday, 15 October 2026. The study, titled La salud mental sí es cosa de adolescentes, tracks the emotional wellbeing of 12 to 16 year olds and describes a fall that UNICEF calls without precedent. According to the findings, the indicators held roughly steady between 2006 and 2018, then worsened on every measure in 2022. The results come from a sample of 14,000 students across Spain, and the work received funding from the Ministry of Social Rights, Consumer Affairs and the 2030 Agenda. On the KIDSCREEN-10 wellbeing scale, which runs from one to five, the average slipped from 3.75, held for more than a decade, to 3.47 in the most recent measurement.
Loneliness, sadness and concentration
Between 2018 and 2022 the share of adolescents who say they feel lonely nearly doubled, rising from 7% to 13.6%. Those reporting sadness climbed from 11.9% to 19.5% over the same years. The share who can pay attention and concentrate always or almost always fell from 55% to 40.1%, while the study also reports that students with enough free time for themselves dropped from 52.9% to 36.7%. The chart sets the 2018 and 2022 figures side by side.
- Feel lonely, 2018
- 7 %
- Feel lonely, 2022
- 13.6 %
- Feel sad, 2018
- 11.9 %
- Feel sad, 2022
- 19.5 %
- Pay attention always or almost always, 2018
- 55 %
- Pay attention always or almost always, 2022
- 40.1 %
María Ángeles Espinosa, president of UNICEF España, told a press conference that the findings should worry people and prompt action.
We have to be very attentive, because these are not just things that come with age.
She added that the problem should be treated neither with alarm nor with oversimplification, yet it cannot be ignored because it shapes both the present and the future of adolescence.
Girls and students from lower-income homes
The decline was steeper for girls. Between 2018 and 2022 boys' wellbeing fell by 0.14 points, while girls' fell by 0.41 points, nearly three times as much.
- Boys
- 0.14 points
- Girls
- 0.41 points
Socioeconomic background follows the same pattern. In 2022, students from families with fewer resources reported a wellbeing score of 3.26, against 3.54 for students from high-income households. Published figures for middle-income households differ, 3.4 and 3.49, so that point is not settled. The study also reports that students from the least resourced homes saw the steepest decline in wellbeing.
Stigma, help-seeking and diagnosis
The study links stigma to a reluctance to seek help. Of secondary students who had a mental health problem in the past year, 53% did not ask anyone for help, and 39.6% told nobody close to them. Among young people, 29.7% hold prejudice toward mental illness or want social distance from those affected, and that prejudice is higher among boys (37.6%) than girls (21.2%). Only 51.8% of those with such prejudice would see a psychologist, compared with 69% of those without. Among 12 to 16 year olds, 18.8% say with certainty that they had a mental health problem in the past year, and a further 19.7% are unsure.
The report also warns against two opposite errors: treating ordinary sadness or anxiety as disorders, and missing serious conditions that need professional care. Pilar Ramos, professor at the University of Seville and director of the barometer, described the data in these terms.
The data are worrying because they show a clear decline in how adolescents themselves perceive their emotional wellbeing.
Ramos said the key is having timely responses suited to different situations, rather than choosing between waiting it out and seeing a psychologist.