Abstract
The COVID-19 pandemic has caused unprecedented changes in the lives of 1.6 billion children and adolescents. First non-representative studies from China, India, Brazil, the US, Spain, Italy, and Germany pointed to a negative mental health impact. The current study is the first nationwide representative study to investigate the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on health-related quality of life (HRQoL) and mental health of children and adolescents in Germany from the perspective of children themselves. A representative online survey was conducted among n = 1586 families with 7- to 17-year-old children and adolescents between May 26 and June 10. The survey included internationally established and validated instruments for measuring HRQoL (KIDSCREEN-10), mental health problems (SDQ), anxiety (SCARED), and depression (CES-DC). Results were compared with data from the nationwide, longitudinal, representative BELLA cohort study (n = 1556) conducted in Germany before the pandemic. Two-thirds of the children and adolescents reported being highly burdened by the COVID-19 pandemic. They experienced significantly lower HRQoL (40.2% vs. 15.3%), more mental health problems (17.8% vs. 9.9%) and higher anxiety levels (24.1% vs. 14.9%) than before the pandemic. Children with low socioeconomic status, migration background and limited living space were affected significantly more. Health promotion and prevention strategies need to be implemented to maintain children’s and adolescents’ mental health, improve their HRQoL, and mitigate the burden caused by COVID-19, particularly for children who are most at risk.
Highlights
The Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has led to rapid, unprecedented changes to the lives of billions of children and adolescents
The sociodemographic characteristics of the COPSY and BELLA subsamples used for the pooled regression analyses on health-related quality of life (HRQoL) and mental health of children and adolescents before and during the COVID-19 pandemic are depicted in Supplementary Tables 1 and 2
Children and adolescents with low socioeconomic status, low parental education and migrant status are burdened by the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic
Summary
The Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has led to rapid, unprecedented changes to the lives of billions of children and adolescents. Faced with countless deaths and hundreds of thousands of people worldwide being infected, most countries have implemented massive preventive measures. The prevalence of COVID-19 in children is low (between 0.8% and 3.3%) and most children only display mild physical symptoms or are asymptomatic [1,2,3,4]. Children and adolescents face massive changes in their daily lives, including school closures, home confinement, and social distancing rules, which can burden them substantially [5,6,7]. Violence against children is reported to have increased under home confinement leaving children at risk of abuse and trauma [8]
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