SARS-CoV-2 & Pediatric Mental Health: A Review of Recent Evidence

  1. Mir Ibrahim Sajid
  2. Javeria Tariq
  3. Ayesha Akbar Waheed
  4. Dur-e-Najaf
  5. Samira Shabbir Balouch
  6. Sajid Abaidullah

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Abstract

SARS-CoV-2 was declared a global pandemic by the World Health Organization (WHO) and was met with lockdown policies to curb the spread of the disease. This meant that 890 million students in 114 countries would be affected by the closure of their educational institutes, affecting their mental health. Mental health disorders are suggested to have a well-correlated link to suicide, which is the third most leading cause of death worldwide amongst children aged 15-19 years. According to WHO, “health is a state of complete physical, mental and social wellbeing and not merely the absence of disease.” Hence the isolation brought about by SARS-CoV-2 is postulated to cause anxiety, fear, and depression amongst the pediatric population, due to the loss of socialization and separation from friends. In this systematic review and meta-analysis, we highlight the major mental health issues in children aged 2-18 years, along with their causes, effects, and potential solutions to tackle these problems.

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  1. ScreenIT

    SciScore for 10.1101/2020.06.28.20136168: (What is this?)

    Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.

    Table 1: Rigor

    Institutional Review Board Statementnot detected.
    Randomizationnot detected.
    Blindingnot detected.
    Power Analysisnot detected.
    Sex as a biological variablenot detected.

    Table 2: Resources

    Software and Algorithms
    SentencesResources
    The PICO Question for this particular review is: Population: Pediatric population (age range: 2-18 years) Intervention: SARS-CoV-2 Control: No disease process, healthy individuals, and individuals who were suffering from any disease other than SARS-CoV-2 Outcomes: Mental health outcomes such as Stress, Anxiety, Anger and Depression Study Design: Case-control, cross-sectional, cohort studies and case series (cases reported >4), letters, perspectives and correspondences Time Frame: The disease duration: 2019-2020 Search Strategy: An exhaustive literature review was conducted on four major databases, PubMed, CINAHL, Science Direct and Wiley Online Library; and a pre-print server, medRxiv to capture grey literature.
    PubMed
    suggested: (PubMed, RRID:SCR_004846)

    Results from OddPub: We did not detect open data. We also did not detect open code. Researchers are encouraged to share open data when possible (see Nature blog).

    Results from LimitationRecognizer: An explicit section about the limitations of the techniques employed in this study was not found. We encourage authors to address study limitations.

    Results from TrialIdentifier: No clinical trial numbers were referenced.

    Results from Barzooka: We did not find any issues relating to the usage of bar graphs.

    Results from JetFighter: We did not find any issues relating to colormaps.

    Results from rtransparent:
    • Thank you for including a conflict of interest statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • Thank you for including a funding statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • No protocol registration statement was detected.

    About SciScore

    SciScore is an automated tool that is designed to assist expert reviewers by finding and presenting formulaic information scattered throughout a paper in a standard, easy to digest format. SciScore checks for the presence and correctness of RRIDs (research resource identifiers), and for rigor criteria such as sex and investigator blinding. For details on the theoretical underpinning of rigor criteria and the tools shown here, including references cited, please follow this link.

  2. Version published to 10.1101/2020.06.28.20136168v1 on medRxiv