Mental health impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on children and adolescents with chronic health conditions

  1. Louise M Crowe
  2. Cathriona Clarke
  3. Stephen Hearps
  4. Remy Pugh
  5. Nicky Kilpatrick
  6. Emma Branson
  7. Jonathan M Payne
  8. Kristina M Haebich
  9. Natalie McCloughan
  10. Christopher Kintakas
  11. Genevieve Charles
  12. Misel Trajanovska
  13. Ivy Hsieh
  14. Penelope L Hartmann
  15. Sebastian King
  16. Nicholas Anderson
  17. Vicki A Anderson

Reviewed by

Read the full article

Listed in

Log in to save this article

Abstract

To investigate the changes in mental health and activities of children with chronic health conditions (CHC) during the pandemic. Additionally, to gather information from parents about their children’s healthcare experience, family stressors and mental health during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Design

A prospective longitudinal single site cohort study

Setting

Royal Children’s Hospital, Melbourne, Australia

Participants

151 parents of children aged 1.5-17 years (M = 9.8 years, 58.3% male) with a CHC (colorectal disorder, cleft palate and neurofibromatosis type 1) completed the survey.

Main outcome measures

An adapted version of the COVID-19 Wellbeing and Mental Health Survey for Children and Adolescents (Parent/Caregiver version) (CRISIS) was utilised. The CRISIS tool provides data on child’s activities and mental health and parent mental health prior to, and during, the COVID-19 pandemic. Healthcare experiences families was also examined. Parents completed the Kessler 10.

Results

Compared to pre-COVID lockdown, parents reported their children were experiencing higher rates of loneliness, irritability, worry and anxiety. Parents reported that the restrictions in face-to-face contact with family and friends had been stressful for 80.0% of children. Children’s activities changed considerably during the COVID-19 pandemic with screen time increasing by 40%. Thirty percent of parents reported significant distress of their own. Parents felt telehealth were of poorer quality than face-to-face appointments.

Conclusions

Children with CHC experienced a significant increase in mental health symptoms during lockdown for the COVID-19 pandemic. Our findings highlight the increased need for clinical monitoring for children with CHC during periods of community stress and restrictions.

Article activity feed

  1. ScreenIT

    SciScore for 10.1101/2021.08.10.21261816: (What is this?)

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

    Table 1: Rigor

    EthicsIRB: Ethical approval was granted by the RCH Human Research Ethics Committee (HREC 64840).
    Consent: Families who did not opt out were contacted by phone to further explain the study, obtain informed consent and collect contact details.
    Sex as a biological variablenot detected.
    Randomizationnot detected.
    Blindingnot detected.
    Power Analysisnot detected.

    Table 2: Resources

    Software and Algorithms
    SentencesResources
    Measures: The surveys were delivered online via REDCap (11).
    REDCap
    suggested: (REDCap, RRID:SCR_003445)

    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.

    Results from scite Reference Check: We found no unreliable references.

    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 10.1101/2021.08.10.21261816v1 on medRxiv