Children and COVID-19 Research Library

This survey aimed to investigate how online parental behavior affects their parenting practices and how such practices may affect their family relations, their children’s social competencies, school achievements, and self–esteem. It examined a sample of 357 Greek-speaking parents (77.3% mothers and 22.7% fathers). It applied Young's (1998) Internet Addiction Questionnaire, the Alabama Parenting Questionnaire (APQ), and Kontopoulou's (2008) questionnaire to assess children's school performance and social competencies, their self-esteem, and family relationships.

Restrictions due to COVID-19 lockdowns reduced the possibilities of children and adolescents for being active, with negative consequences in adopting a healthy lifestyle. This study aims to compare Greek adolescents’ self-reported weekly participation in physical activity, during and before the two initial strict lockdowns, due to COVID-19. Secondary aims were to examine these differences with regard to gender, and associations between weekly physical activity participation with health status variables. Three hundred and sixty-three adolescents (Ν=363) from secondary schools, in the Greek territory (108 boys and 255 girls) filled in the Godin-Shephard Leisure-Time Physical Activity Questionnaire and the TNO-AZL Questionnaire for Children’s Health-Related Quality of Life Children’s Form, online. It was a cross-sectional study and data were collected during first and second strict lockdowns, from different adolescents who filled in the above online questionnaires once.

Maternal attitudes and beliefs have been shown to influence childhood vaccination coverage, resulting in under-vaccination, non-vaccination, and vaccination delay. This study aimed to investigate the mothers' attitudes and perceptions about vaccination for their children in Greece. This was an online cross-sectional study, conducted from 4 April to 8 June 2020. A self-administered questionnaire was used to collect information about mothers' and their children's socio-demographic characteristics, previous vaccination behavior, and mothers' attitudes and perceptions about childhood vaccination. Participants included adult mothers with at least one minor child.

The current study aimed to investigate how parents of children, adolescents, and young adults with DM1 perceived quality of life and psychological burden during the lockdown period of COVID-19. A cross-sectional study was carried out on 110 parents in Greece in spring 2021. Perceived quality of life was measured using the Parent Diabetes Distress Scale, and psychological burden was measured using the Spielberger State/Trait Anxiety Inventory, and both were assessed with correlational analysis.

Children are the forgotten group as they have been excluded from examining how they understand information about COVID-19. This study examined how children in Greece represent the COVID-19 virus. The drawing method was used as a process of meaning construction combining subjective experiences with socio-cultural meanings. Thirty-four children aged 4 to 6 years old (M = 5.4) were asked to draw a picture of the COVID-19 virus and explain their drawings verbally. This study used participant-created drawings to assess how children represent the COVID-19 virus and reports that drawing is an effective method of examining children’s social representations. Methodologically, by using drawing, this study reveals layers of social representations that may be difficult to put into words. Three distinct themes, namely “scientific” knowledge of the virus, the COVID-19 virus as the enemy, and the confinement situation, were identified in the children’s visualizations and verbalizations constituting children’s social representations of COVID-19. This study’s results show that social representations give meaning to a novel reality and allow the participating children to direct themselves as regards this novel reality.

The COVID-19 crisis influenced the lives of families and preschoolers, worldwide. School closures and restriction measures introduced distance learning for preschoolers and remote working for parents. Social distancing narrowed opportunities to meet with peers and enjoy leisure activities. Additionally, social and mental services closures limited young children's accessibility to mental, speech and occupational health services. The aim of the current study was to investigate how home confinement during the third wave of the COVID-19 pandemic affected parenting self-efficacy and preschoolers' anxiety. An online survey based on a convenience sample took place on April 2021 to evaluate how home confinement to halt the third wave of COVID-19 pandemic influenced children's anxiety and parenting self-efficacy (PSE). Parents of 146 children (65 girls [44.5%] and 81 boys [55.5%]; aged 2–6 years old) were enrolled and completed a demographics form, the Preschool Anxiety Scale (PAS) and the Tool to Measure Parenting Self-efficacy (TOPSE).

Although many studies have examined factors associated with COVID-19 vaccination and healthcare professionals’ attitudes towards vaccines, less is known about parents’ and pediatricians’ attitudes towards COVID-19 vaccination for children. Using two cross-sectional surveys from November to December 2021 in Greece, this study aimed to assess parental intention to vaccinate their 5 to 17 years old children against COVID-19 and to evaluate pediatricians’ attitudes towards children’s vaccination against COVID-19. Overall, 439 parents and 135 pediatricians participated.

This paper reports the first findings of a study that sheds light upon the way early childhood education schools in Greece responded to the COVID-19 lockdown conditions. Specifically, it explores through content analysis and semi-structured interviews: (a) the way 16 early childhood education schools in Athens (8 public and 8 private) first contacted students and their families to inform them about the suspension (b) the way they adapted their programmes to continue to provide education during the first lockdown (Spring 2020) using different models of home-schooling and (c) teachers’ views on the teaching practices they followed at their schools and the challenges they faced.

Despite the growing body of research on the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic on children’s wellbeing, few studies so far have explored children’s points of view, while the majority were based on data collected during the first year of the pandemic. The present study attempted to capture children’s views 1 year after the beginning of the pandemic, and to this end, data were collected during Spring 2021 in Greece. Specifically, by combining verbal and visual data, the study attempted to explore children’s views of SARS-CoV-2 and COVID-19 preventive practices. Participants involved 320 children, ranging in age from 4 to 12 years, who were asked to verbally describe and draw (a) Coronavirus and (b) the preventive measures adopted to mitigate the pandemic.

The aim of this study was to investigate changes in the eating behaviour of children and adolescents during the first lockdown implemented in Greece due to COVID-19 and to explore possible correlations with corresponding changes in the eating behaviour of their parents. A quantitative cross-sectional study was performed using an online questionnaire. The research sample consisted of 397 parents with children aged 2-18 years, who were recruited from 63 municipalities in Greece.

COVID-19, caused by SARS-CoV-2, is a highly contagious respiratory tract infection. A major concern of SARS-CoV-2 infection in pregnant women is vertical maternal-fetal transmission and the ramifications on infant hearing. This retrospective study aims to investigate whether perinatal exposure to SARS-CoV-2 has an impact on the hearing of the offspring. The study population included neonates born to unvaccinated COVID-19 positive mothers in the University Hospital of Patras, Greece from March 2020 to January 2021. Polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests were performed on the neonates on the first, second,^, and seventh day of life. All neonates underwent transient evoked otoacoustic emissions (TEOAEs) within the first three months of life and were all examined at the age of nine months.

Vaccine hesitancy remains a major public health concern. The reasons behind this attitude are complex and warrant careful consideration, especially in the context of the COVID-19 era. The purpose of this study was to estimate vaccine hesitancy towards the established childhood immunization programmes in a non-random sample of Greek parents and explore possible links with important drivers of this phenomenon. An online self-administered questionnaire was used from October 2020 to April 2021 to collect socio-demographic, lifestyle, and health status data and evaluate knowledge, views, and attitudes of the Greek population on COVID-19 pandemic-related issues. Parents were further asked to complete the Parent Attitudes about Childhood Vaccines (PACV) questionnaire.

Vaccinating children against COVID-19 is critical to contain the ongoing pandemic. The aim of the present study was to assess parents' and caregivers' intention to vaccinate their 5–11 years old children against COVID-19 and to estimate the association between vaccination intention and sociodemographic, clinical and contextual factors. We conducted a questionnaire-based survey on a convenience sample of parents in Patras, Western Greece.

The DESECE Children’s Festival was launched in 2010 at the Department of Educational Sciences and Early Childhood Education (DESECE) of the University of Patras. It is organised annually by the DESECE students in collaboration with their professors and comprises a variety of educational and creative workshops for children of a preschool age. To date, it has hosted over 10,000 children, and 300 institutions and schools, and has expanded its activities into other areas as well, such as teacher training. In 2020, in response to the COVID-19 pandemic and in order to support the children, parents and teachers, the Children’s Festival sought alternative ways of carrying out the event, creating online activities and a thirty-hour virtual festival over five days. This unprecedented experience offered great satisfaction to the Festival’s Organising Committee, which managed the crisis, and to the volunteer students, who improved their digital skills and gained experience in e‑learning. At the same time, it offered the possibility to people, both in Greece and abroad, to participate in the event, which until then had been limited to local society.