101 The impact of 100 days of covid-19 lock-down on the emotional health of school children in an urban indian setting

BackgroundIn response to the WHO recommended measures of physical and social distancing to mitigate person-to-person transmission, most countries decided to close schools as part of a physical distancing policy to slow transmission of COVID-19 and to ease the burden on health systems. Schools were closed in more than 160 countries by mid-July 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Public health measures taken to prevent the spread of the pandemic can potentially impact the mental health of children. Not much is known about the long-term impact of large-scale disease outbreaks on the mental health of children and adolescents.ObjectivesTo assess the prevalence and risk factors of childhood depression during the Covid-19 lock-down among school children.MethodsAfter 100 days of lock-down, a voluntary, anonymous survey questionnaire was sent by WhatsApp to parents of school-aged children (5–16 years) in Chennai. The Short Mood and Feelings questionnaire was employed as an objective screening tool to assess depression, with a score of 12 used as the cut-off which is recommended by the Child Outcomes Research Consortium, United Kingdom. All data were analyzed using Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS, version 17) for Microsoft Windows. A chi-squared test was used for comparison between two attributes with OR 95% CI. Multiple logistic regression was used. A two-sided p value < 0.05 was considered statistically significant. Ethics approval was obtained for this research study.ResultsThere were 874 responses. Our survey revealed the incidence of childhood depression to be 13.7%, indicating that children are likely to be experiencing increasing depression exacerbated by the pandemic and the lock-down. Boys were less likely to be depressed than girls (OR 0.495, P value 0.000). Eleven- to 16-year-olds were more likely to be depressed than 5- to 10-year-old children (OR 1.519, P 0.035). Children who had more than 4 hours online education were more likely to have depression (OR 1.757, P= 0.037). Children who used a cell phone for online classes were more likely to have depression compared to other devices, such as tabs or laptops (OR 2.142, P 0.000). Children who slept less than 8 hours a day were more likely to have depression (OR 2.441, P 0.000). Children who either did not sleep in the afternoon or slept less than 1 hour were less likely to have depression (OR 0.522, P 0.010). Children who were interacting with family over 1 hour per day were less likely to have