■COVID-19大流行对儿童及其家庭的生活造成了严重破坏。学龄前儿童可能特别容易受到流行病的影响,随着儿童保育设施的关闭,游乐场,游戏中心和家长和幼儿团体在发展的关键阶段限制了他们的社交互动机会。此外,对于在家工作的父母来说,照顾需要高水平支持和照顾的学龄前儿童,可能具有挑战性。我们进行了密集的纵向,但没有全国代表性,调查英国学龄前儿童在COVID-19大流行第一年的精神症状轨迹的研究。
■英国学龄前儿童(2-4岁)的父母和照顾者(n=1520)在2020年4月至2021年3月之间完成了有关其学龄前儿童心理健康的每月在线调查。这项调查检查了儿童情绪症状的变化,行为问题和多动/注意力不集中。
■在我们最终的混合效应模型中,我们的预测因子(固定效应)占每个行为问题方差的5%,情绪症状和多动/注意力不集中症状评分,随机效应和固定效应的组合占方差的64%至73%。从2020年4月到2020年夏季,学龄前儿童的情绪问题和多动/注意力不集中症状有所下降,然后在2020/2021年秋季和冬季再次增加,因为重新引入了封锁。参加托儿服务的学龄前儿童的症状严重程度下降幅度大于未参加托儿服务的学龄前儿童。年龄较大的孩子,相比年轻,表现出更大的情绪症状严重程度的不稳定性。参加托儿所预测的行为问题的所有三个领域的症状严重程度都较低,情绪症状,多动/注意力不集中,而父母有心理健康问题的孩子则相反。
■我们的研究结果强调了在微观和宏观层面因素的背景下检查学龄前儿童心理健康的重要性。关注家庭因素的干预措施,如父母的心理健康,以及继续提供儿童保育,可能最有可能减轻COVID-19对幼儿心理健康的影响。
UNASSIGNED: The COVID-19 pandemic caused significant disruption to the lives of children and their families. Pre-school children may have been particularly vulnerable to the effects of the pandemic, with the closure of childcare facilities, playgrounds, playcentres and parent and toddler groups limiting their opportunities for social interaction at a crucial stage of development. Additionally, for parents working from home, caring for pre-school aged children who require high levels of support and care, was likely challenging. We conducted an intensive longitudinal, but not nationally representative, study to examine trajectories of pre-schoolers\' mental symptoms in the United Kingdom during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic.
UNASSIGNED: UK-based parents and carers (n = 1520) of pre-school-aged children (2-4 years) completed monthly online surveys about their pre-schoolers\' mental health between April 2020 and March 2021. The survey examined changes in children\'s emotional symptoms, conduct problems and hyperactivity/inattention.
UNASSIGNED: In our final mixed-effects models, our predictors (fixed effects) accounted for 5% of the variance in each of conduct problems, emotional symptoms and hyperactivity/inattention symptoms scores, and the combined random and fixed effects accounted for between 64% and 73% of the variance. Pre-schoolers\' emotional problems and hyperactivity/inattention symptoms declined from April through summer 2020 and then increased again during the autumn and winter 2020/2021 as lockdowns were re-introduced. Pre-schoolers who attended childcare showed greater decline in symptom severity than those who did not. Older children, compared to younger, showed greater lability of emotion symptom severity. Attending childcare predicted lower symptom severity across all three domains of conduct problems, emotional symptoms, and hyperactivity/inattention, while the opposite pattern was observed for children whose parent had a mental health problem.
UNASSIGNED: Our findings reinforce the importance of examining pre-schoolers\' mental health in the context of micro and macro-level factors. Interventions focussing on family factors such as parent mental health, as well as continued provision of childcare, may have most potential to mitigate the impact of COVID-19 on young children\'s mental health.