Health and Rehabilitation Sciences, Faculty of Health Sciences, The University of Western Ontario, London, ON, Canada.
Child Health and Physical Activity Laboratory, School of Occupational Therapy, The University of Western Ontario, London, ON, Canada.
BMC Public Health. 2022 Aug 1;22(1):1459. doi: 10.1186/s12889-022-13829-y.
COVID-19 has drastically changed the everyday lives of children, including limiting interactions with peers, loss of regularly organized activities, and closure of schools and recreational facilities. While COVID-19 protocols are in place to reduce viral transmission, they have affected children's access to physical activity opportunities. The purpose of this study was to understand how COVID-19 has affected children's engagement in physical activity and to identify strategies that can support children's return to physical activity programming in public places.
Parents of past participants in the Grade 5 ACT-i-Pass Program in London, Ontario, Canada were invited to participate in a semi-structured interview online (in November and December 2020) via Microsoft Teams. The script was comprised of questions about their child's physical activity levels (before, current, and anticipated following COVID-19), lifestyle changes due to COVID-19, and what service providers can do to assist children's return to public programming. Interviews were transcribed in Microsoft Teams, reviewed by a member of the research team, and analyzed in NVivo 12 using thematic analysis.
Twenty-seven parents participated in an interview. Four themes and two subthemes were identified during analysis: (1) modifications to everyday life (a. activity options available and b. altered social environment), (2) safety in public spaces, (3) accessibility of activities, and (4) utilizing outdoor spaces.
COVID-19 protocols have decreased children's physical activity levels due to the loss of their regular activities, recreational spaces, and peer support. Implementing facility and activity-specific health protocols, providing outdoor activity options, and offering a variety of activity types, times, and locations are three strategies recommended by parents to help facilitate their children's return to public recreational places. Due to the negative consequences of physical inactivity on children's health and well-being, service providers need to implement programming and safety protocols that support children's engagement in physical activity throughout the remainder of, and the years following, the COVID-19 pandemic.
COVID-19 极大地改变了儿童的日常生活，包括限制与同龄人互动、失去定期组织的活动以及学校和娱乐设施关闭。虽然 COVID-19 协议的目的是减少病毒传播，但它们影响了儿童获得体育活动的机会。本研究旨在了解 COVID-19 如何影响儿童参与体育活动，并确定支持儿童返回公共场所体育活动计划的策略。
安大略省伦敦 ACT-i-Pass 计划过去的参与者的家长受邀通过 Microsoft Teams 在线（2020 年 11 月至 12 月）参加半结构式访谈。脚本包含有关他们孩子的体育活动水平（之前、当前和 COVID-19 后预期）、由于 COVID-19 导致的生活方式变化以及服务提供商可以做些什么来帮助孩子重返公共计划的问题。访谈内容在 Microsoft Teams 中进行转录，由研究团队的一名成员进行审查，并在 NVivo 12 中使用主题分析进行分析。
27 位家长参加了访谈。分析过程中确定了四个主题和两个子主题：（1）日常生活的改变（a. 可用的活动选择和 b. 改变的社会环境），（2）公共空间的安全性，（3）活动的可及性，（4）利用户外空间。
由于常规活动、娱乐空间和同伴支持的丧失，COVID-19 协议降低了儿童的体育活动水平。家长建议实施设施和活动特定的健康协议、提供户外活动选择以及提供各种活动类型、时间和地点，这是帮助促进他们的孩子返回公共娱乐场所的三项策略。由于缺乏身体活动对儿童健康和福祉的负面影响，服务提供商需要实施计划和安全协议，以支持儿童在 COVID-19 大流行期间及之后的几年内参与体育活动。
