• Posted February 18, 2026

School Stress at Age 15 May Leave Long-Term Mental Health Scars

The intense pressure to succeed academically at age 15 may cast a long shadow, increasing the risk of depression and self-harm well into a person's 20s, a new study says.

While many parents and teachers view high expectations as a necessary push toward success, the research suggests that for many, the "push" becomes a "shove" that damages mental health.

In a study published online Feb. 12 in The Lancet Child & Adolescent Health, researchers at the University College London (UCL) tracked 4,714 young people from the Children of the 90s cohort to see how their teenage stress levels, particularly during high-stakes exam periods, influenced their adult lives.

Age 15 is around the time children in the United Kingdom take their General Certificate of Secondary Education exams.

They found that teens who felt overwhelmed by schoolwork at age 15 didn't feel better once the tests were over. Instead, they continued to report higher levels of depressive symptoms every year until at least age 22, with the biggest link at age 16.

The cohort includes parents and their children born in the southwest of England in 1991 and 1992, who completed surveys over the years, including information about depression symptoms.

The findings regarding self-harm were particularly stark. 

At age 15, for every one-point increase on the study's nine-point scale of academic pressure, there was an 8% increase in the odds of a student self-harming. 

This elevated risk remained detectable until the participants reached age 24.

“Young people report that academic pressure is one of their biggest sources of stress,” senior author Gemma Lewis of UCL Psychiatry, said in a news release. “A certain amount of pressure to succeed in school can be motivating, but too much pressure can be overwhelming and may be detrimental to mental health.”

In a separate analysis, researchers also found that high stress as early as ages 11 and 14 was linked to future depression, suggesting the problem begins long before the final high school years. 

The researchers conclude that academic pressure is a potentially modifiable risk factor for depression and self-harm and call for "whole-school" interventions. This would involve changing the very culture of education — potentially by reducing the number of exams and focusing more on building social and emotional skills.

“Current approaches to help pupils with mental health tend to be focused on helping individual pupils cope; we hope to address academic pressure at the whole-school level by addressing the school culture,” Lewis explained in a news release.

The researchers noted that their findings do not reflect the impacts of COVID-19 or later policy changes as the participants were 15 years of age in 2006 to 2007. 

They note that more data is needed and caution that the study was observational, so the findings cannot prove cause and effect.

More information

SchoolSafety.gov offers a guide on promoting mental health in schools.

SOURCES: University College London, news release, Feb. 12, 2026; The Lancet Child & Adolescent Health, Feb. 12, 2026