| Number |
CREPEDP-157 |
| Publication Date |
May 2024 |
| Title |
"Three Years of COVID-19-related School Restrictions
and Mental Health of Children and Adolescents in Japan"
|
| Author |
Reo Takaku, Naohisa Shobako and Taisuke Nakata
|
| Abstract |
During the three years of the COVID-19 pandemic, Japanese children lived with strict
mitigation measures at school, such as eating school lunches silently and wearing masks
during physical exercise classes, even after those mitigation measures have been relaxed
worldwide. Excursions and other school events were frequently cancelled, especially in
2020 and 2021. This study conducts a retrospective survey on school experiences to
understand how the strict mitigation measures were related to children's mental health
and well-being. Results revealed school excursion cancellation to be associated with a
higher risk of developing depressive symptoms (odds ratio [OR] 1.543 [95% confidence
interval {CI} 1.109-2.148]), and high cancellation rate of other school events to be
associated with dissatisfaction in school experience (OR 1.650 [95% CI 1.222-2.228]). In
the subsample analysis, we found that girls and children with no extracurricular activities
tended to exhibit depressive symptoms due to the cancellation of school excursions.
Overall, our study demonstrated that persistent strict mitigation measures at schools might
be a key factor in understanding children’s mental health and psychological well-being
during a long-lasting pandemic.
|
| Keywords |
Children, Covid-19, Mental Health, Non-Pharmaceutical Intervention.
|
| Other information |
Paper in English (31 pages) |