Hen Meirav, Shenaar-Golan Vered, Yatzker Uri
Psychology Department, Tel-Hai Academic College, Tel Hai, Israel.
Social Work Department, Tel-Hai Academic College, Tel Hai, Israel.
Front Psychiatry. 2022 Jun 20;13:865435. doi: 10.3389/fpsyt.2022.865435. eCollection 2022.
The COVID-19 pandemic has shattered routines throughout the world, creating closures and social isolation. Preliminary studies conducted during the pandemic have shown that children and adolescents are mainly affected by social distancing and the lack of a supportive framework. The purpose of the present study was to compare mental health symptoms of 430 children and adolescents who sought mental health services in the community before vs. during the pandemic. The study examined children's perceived burden of the pandemic, reports of emotional and behavioral problems (SDQ) anxiety (SCARED), depressed moods (SMFQ-C), and difficulty in emotional regulation (DERS), as well as intervening variables such as age and gender. Furthermore, the effect of difficulty in emotional regulation on children's mental health symptoms was explored. Findings indicate an increase in all mental health symptoms excluding anxiety, during the pandemic. Boys reported more difficulty in emotional regulation during the pandemic than before, and girls reported more emotional and behavioral problems. Children reported an increase in emotional and behavioral problems and adolescents in peer relationship problems. Difficulty in emotional regulation predicted all mental health symptoms in both samples, more so in girls and adolescents. These initial findings support the need for further studies to examine the long-term mental health effects of COVID-19 pandemic on children and adolescents.
新冠疫情打破了世界各地的常规生活，导致各种场所关闭，人们被迫社交隔离。疫情期间开展的初步研究表明，儿童和青少年主要受到社交距离以及缺乏支持性框架的影响。本研究的目的是比较430名在疫情前与疫情期间在社区寻求心理健康服务的儿童和青少年的心理健康症状。该研究考察了儿童对疫情的感知负担、情绪和行为问题报告（优势与困难问卷）、焦虑（儿童焦虑相关情绪障碍筛查表）、抑郁情绪（儿童版流调中心抑郁量表）以及情绪调节困难（情绪调节困难量表），还有年龄和性别等干预变量。此外，还探究了情绪调节困难对儿童心理健康症状的影响。研究结果表明，在疫情期间，除焦虑外，所有心理健康症状均有所增加。男孩报告称，疫情期间在情绪调节方面比以前更困难，而女孩报告了更多的情绪和行为问题。儿童报告情绪和行为问题增加，青少年报告同伴关系问题增加。情绪调节困难在两个样本中均能预测所有心理健康症状，在女孩和青少年中表现更为明显。这些初步研究结果支持进一步开展研究，以考察新冠疫情对儿童和青少年心理健康的长期影响。
