How did the COVID-19 lockdown affect children and adolescent's well-being: spanish parents, children, and adolescents respond
Author
Ajanovic, Sara
Garrido-Aguirre, Jon
Baro, Bàrbara
Balanza, Núria
Varo, Rosauro
Millat-Martínez, Pere
Arias, Sara
Fonollosa, Jordi
Perera-Lluna, Alexandre
Crosas-Soler, Aina
Via, Esther
Nafria, Begonya
García-García, Juan José
Bassat, Quique
Publication date
2021ISSN
2296-2565
Abstract
Background: During the COVID-19 pandemic, lockdown strategies have been widely used to contain SARS-CoV-2 virus spread. Children and adolescents are especially vulnerable to suffering psychological effects as result of such measures. In Spain, children were enforced to a strict home lockdown for 42 days during the first wave. Here, we studied the effects of lockdown in children and adolescents through an online questionnaire. Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted in Spain using an open online survey from July (after the lockdown resulting from the first pandemic wave) to November 2020 (second wave). We included families with children under 16 years-old living in Spain. Parents answered a survey regarding the lockdown effects on their children and were instructed to invite their children from 7 to 16 years-old (mandatory scholar age in Spain) to respond a specific set of questions. Answers were collected through an application programming interface system, and data analysis was performed using R. Results: We included 1,957 families who completed the questionnaires, covering a total of 3,347 children. The specific children's questionnaire was completed by 167 kids (7–11 years-old), and 100 adolescents (12–16 years-old). Children, in general, showed high resilience and capability to adapt to new situations. Sleeping problems were reported in more than half of the children (54%) and adolescents (59%), and these were strongly associated with less time doing sports and spending more than 5 h per day using electronic devices. Parents perceived their children to gain weight (41%), be more irritable and anxious (63%) and sadder (46%). Parents and children differed significantly when evaluating children's sleeping disturbances. Conclusions: Enforced lockdown measures and isolation can have a negative impact on children and adolescent's mental health and well-being. In future waves of the current pandemic, or in the light of potential epidemics of new emerging infections, lockdown measures targeting children, and adolescents should be reconsidered taking into account their infectiousness potential and their age-specific needs, especially to facilitate physical activity and to limit time spent on electronic devices.
Document Type
Article
Document version
Published version
Language
English
Subject (CDU)
61 - Medical sciences
616.9 - Communicable diseases. Infectious and contagious diseases, fevers
Keywords
COVID-19
Confinament
Infants
Adolescents
Salut mental
Benestar
COVID-19
Encierro
Niños
Adolescentes
Salud mental
Bienestar
COVID-19
Lockdown
Children
Adolescent
Mental health
Well-being
Pages
9
Publisher
Frontiers Media
Collection
9;
Is part of
Frontiers in Public Health
Citation
Ajanovic, Sara; Garrido-Aguirre, Jon; Baro, Bàrbara [et al.]. How did the COVID-19 lockdown affect children and adolescent's well-being: spanish parents, children, and adolescents respond. Frontiers in Public Health, 2021, 9, 746052. Disponible en: <https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpubh.2021.746052/full>. Fecha de acceso: 7 ene. 2022. DOI: 10.3389/fpubh.2021.746052
This item appears in the following Collection(s)
- Ciències de la Salut [740]
Rights
© 2021 Ajanovic, Garrido-Aguirre, Baro, Balanza, Varo, Millat-Martínez, Arias, Fonollosa, Perera-Lluna, Jordan, Muñoz-Almagro, Bonet-Carne, CrosasSoler, Via, Nafria, García-García and Bassat. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
Except where otherwise noted, this item's license is described as https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/