Children and COVID-19 Research Library

The outbreak of COVID-19 appeared first in China and then, rapidly, spread to the rest of the world, and WHO declared it as a pandemic.A nation-wide closure of educational institutions was implemented as an emergency measure in India in March 2020. Meanwhile the traditional classroom instructions were replaced by online classes and home-based learning. Pandemic stressors such as boredom, being in isolation, one of the family members hospitalized/ succumbed to covid, etc, may have even more negative impact on children’s behaviour and emotions. Objectives were to study the impact of covid 19 pandemic on psychosocial, educational and behavioral aspects of children. The current study was a questionnaire based cross-sectional survey conducted among the parents attending paediatric OPD in NRI general and superspeciality hospital, Mangalagiri, between September 2021 to December 2021 over a period of 70 day along with their children of age group between 3 years to 18 years with an aim to explore various psychosocial, educational and behavioral aspects of children and their correlation.

Adolescence is a critical and formative period in which individuals begin their transition from childhood to adulthood and the presence of psychiatric disorders such as depression and anxiety at this stage of life is a matter of concern. Half of all mental health conditions start at 14 years of age but most cases are undetected and untreated. To assess the prevalence of depression and anxiety among adolescents and to assess the factors associated with depression and anxiety among adolescents. Data were collected from a sample of 620 adolescents of ages 14 to 16 years studying through the multistage cluster sampling method.

With the advent of COVID-19 era, teaching activities have migrated from offline to online platform. This study aimed to assess whether the increased exposure to visual display terminal (VDT) devices is affecting the health of school-age children with regard to computer vision syndrome (CVS). This cross-sectional study was carried out by means of an online questionnaire. Participants were students ranging from Class 1 to Class 12. Questions were posed to participants pertaining to screen exposure time, physical activity levels, dry eye symptoms, and asthenopia symptoms. The dry eye part was adapted from the 5 Item Dry Eye Questionnaire (DEQ5 questionnaire), and the asthenopia part was adapted from the questionnaire developed by Ames et al. A total of 554 students were included in the study. The data received were statistically analyzed.

The mental health of adolescent girls in countries of South Asia is related to several social and cultural factors including gender disadvantage, especially in low resource settings such as tribal areas. The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has increased this vulnerability even further. This study assesses the association of gender disadvantage with psychological distress among adolescent girls residing in a tribal area of India and examines the role of resilience. The study was conducted during the COVID-19 pandemic first wave in 2020 using telephonic interviews with 102 girls aged 15–20 from one block (65.46% tribal population) of a predominantly tribal area in Central India. Trained interviewers administered translated versions of the Kessler Psychological Distress 10-item scale (K-10), the Checklist for Assessment of Gender Disadvantage (CAGED), and the Brief Resilience Scale (BRS). Pair-wise correlation was conducted between gender disadvantage, resilience and psychological distress using CAGED, BRS and K-10 scores. A one-way ANOVA was used to compare mean difference in CAGED domain scores and K-10 severity score groups.

Despite COVID-19 vaccines being available to pregnant women in India since summer 2021, little is known about vaccine uptake among this high need population. We conducted mixed methods research with pregnant and recently delivered rural women in northern India, consisting of 300 phone surveys and 15 in-depth interviews, in November 2021. Only about a third of respondents were vaccinated, however, about half of unvaccinated respondents reported that they would get vaccinated now if they could. Fears of harm to the unborn baby or young infant were common (22% of unvaccinated women). However, among unvaccinated women who wanted to get vaccinated, the most common barrier reported was that their health care provider refused to provide them the vaccine. Gender barriers and social norms also played a role, with family members restricting women’s access. Trust in the health system was high, however, women were most often getting information about COVID-19 vaccines from sources that they did not trust, and they knew they were getting potentially poor-quality information. Qualitative data shed light on the barriers women faced from their family and health care providers but described how as more people got the vaccine that norms were changing.

Omicron was declared as a variant of concern by WHO on 26 Nov 2021. Omicron is highly transmissible, but the disease severity and morbidity were lesser compared to the Delta variant. However, COVID-19 Vaccine efficacy was reduced for the Omicron variant whereas it was highly efficacious for the Delta variant. Hence, for evidence-based counseling in pregnant patients about expected outcomes depending on their vaccination status, this prospective cohort study was conducted. This study was conducted in Base Hospital Delhi Cantt, New Delhi, India during the third wave of SARS-CoV-2 i.e. from Jan 2022 to Mar 2022. All COVID-19-positive patients who were admitted for delivery were followed up till discharge from the hospital. The outcomes in terms of severity of COVID-19 infection, period of gestation at the time of delivery, intrapartum/postpartum complications, fetal distress, meconium staining of liquor, the requirement of neonatal intensive care unit admission were documented and data was analyzed to assess clinical severity of the disease in fully/partially vaccinated+unvaccinated women.

The COVID-19 pandemic disrupted newborn care and breastfeeding practices across most healthcare facilities. We undertook this study to explore the barriers and enablers for newborn care and breastfeeding practices in hospitals in Delhi, India for recently delivered mother (RDM)–newborn dyads during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic (2020) and inductively design a “pathway of impaction” for informing mitigatory initiatives during the current and future pandemics, at least in the initial months. This study used an exploratory descriptive design (qualitative research method) and collected information from seven leading public health facilities in Delhi, India. We conducted separate interviews with the head and senior faculty from the Departments of Pediatrics/Neonatology (n = 12) and Obstetrics (n = 7), resident doctors (n = 14), nurses (labor room/maternity ward; n = 13), and RDMs (n = 45) across three profiles: (a) COVID-19-negative RDM with healthy newborn (n = 18), (b) COVID-19-positive RDM with healthy newborn (n = 19), and (c) COVID-19 positive RDM with sick newborn needing intensive care (n = 8) along with their care-giving family members (n = 39). We analyzed the data using grounded theory as the method and phenomenology as the philosophy of our research.

This paper unpacks how everyday lives of urban middle-class children were mediated by digital technologies during the COVID-19 national lockdown in India. In contemporary India, children’s engagements with digital technologies are structured by their social class, gender, and geographical locations. The resultant disparities between “media-rich” and “media-poor” childhoods in India are stark. This paper argues that the national lockdown in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic exposed India’s “media-rich” children to particular threats and obstacles. Based on semi-structured interviews and mapping exercises with 16- to 17-year-old urban middle-class young people, it explores how being confined to their homes for an extended period when their schools shifted to online delivery of teaching and learning; young people negotiated risks and sought digital opportunities in the management and social construction of the self.

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) and the nationwide lockdown have resulted in profound disruptions in health care. Thus, the study was done to assess the barriers faced by caregivers of children with chronic diseases in accessing healthcare services due to the lockdown. A questionnaire-based telephonic survey was performed after 2 months of nationwide lockdown in children with chronic diseases at a tertiary hospital in India. Barriers faced were recorded and compared with the place of residence and socioeconomic status (SES).

India is one of the most severely affected countries due to the COVID-19 pandemic. A higher risk of severe illness and complications from COVID-19 had been observed in pregnant women as compared to nonpregnant women. The government of India on July 2, 2021, provided approval for the vaccination of pregnant women against COVID-19. A little data regarding the safety or harm during pregnancy of vaccination were available that time. Lack of safety data, fear, mistrust, underestimation of efficacy of vaccine, and chaos due to pandemic makes indecisive surrounding for pregnant women and this causes hesitancy with decision making about the COVID-19 vaccination.  This study aims to analyze the willingness and hesitancy of pregnant women to get vaccinated against COVID-19.

This study aimed to determine the seroprevalence of SARS COV 2 among children in the Bangalore Rural district. It conducted a cross-sectional study after the second surge of COVID-19 from 14 June to 13 July 2021 and recruited 412 children through house to house visits from four villages in a rural district. It administered a questionnaire to collect demographics and details of COVID-19 infection and used the ABCHEK Antibody Card test (NuLifecare,India) which is an ICMR approved test for detecting antibodies (IgG & IgM) by immunochromatography using the finger prick method. It used Statistical Package for the Social Sciences version 20.0 for analysis.

Under the circumstances created during lockdown period, children were deprived from the social interaction and companionship; because of which, they were susceptible to hampered cognitive development. Therefore, in this study, efforts were made to understand the impact of lockdown on the cognitive development of 5-10 year old children in India. A self-administered online questionnaire was distributed to the parents via social media platforms. This questionnaire included 20 questions divided into categories such as attention, passivity, organizing, perception of space and directions, concept of time, perception of visual forms and figures, memory, comprehension of spoken language, verbal communication, reading-writing-arithmetic, and emotional problems. Responses were automatically recorded in the Google forms.

Recent reviews summarize evidence that some vaccines have heterologous or non-specific effects (NSE), potentially offering protection against multiple pathogens. Numerous economic evaluations examine vaccines' pathogen-specific effects, but less than a handful focus on NSE. This paper addresses that gap by reporting economic evaluations of the NSE of oral polio vaccine (OPV) against under-five mortality and COVID-19. It studied two settings: (1) reducing child mortality in a high-mortality setting (Guinea-Bissau) and (2) preventing COVID-19 in India. In the former, the intervention involves three annual campaigns in which children receive OPV incremental to routine immunization. In the latter, a susceptible-exposed-infectious-recovered model was developed to estimate the population benefits of two scenarios, in which OPV would be co-administered alongside COVID-19 vaccines. Incremental cost-effectiveness and benefit-cost ratios were modeled for ranges of intervention effectiveness estimates to supplement the headline numbers and account for heterogeneity and uncertainty.

The world has been struggling with a pandemic due to coronavirus since 2020. People in virtually every country have been impacted by the pandemic, with children at risk. The children, confined within the four walls, were subjected to an atmosphere of fear and anxiety. After schools and other educational institutions closed their doors, teachers had to come up with alternative methods to continue their jobs in education. Since 2020, some students have been participating in online schooling; more than two years have passed. Several factors have contributed to a decline in the overall quality of education brought on by the epidemic. Children who could use educational resources expressed their concern that their right to receive an education would be curtailed. A digital divide between the wealthy and the poor has emerged due to the proliferation of online educational opportunities. People who are already at a disadvantage and vulnerable are the ones who are hit the hardest by the global epidemic. To cut down on the number of students who drop out of school, efforts should be made to improve educational infrastructure and resources, as well as to improve emergency preparedness and the quality of training provided to educational institutes. This would help both students and teachers work more effectively. This study seeks to investigate the conditions children in India face by way of a survey conducted in the nation's capital.

The government of India announced a nationwide mass vaccination drive for adolescents 15-17 years of age from 3rd January 2022. This announcement was considered a welcome measure by public health experts to increase vaccination coverage throughout the nation. This study was undertaken to understand the safety profile of COVID-19 vaccination among initial adolescent recipients. The first 500 such beneficiaries (adolescents of age 15-18 years) who received COVAXIN were identified. All the vaccination beneficiaries were prospectively taken in the study. These children were telephonically called and assessed for AEFI occurring up to 2 weeks.