Mental Health and Wellbeing of Late Childhood Children in Covid 19 Lockdown in Andhra Pradesh, India

Author(s): Anupama Korlakunta, Dharaneedhar, Praveen Khairkar, Sarada D

Introduction: The impact lockdown on late childhood children may depend on several influencing factors such as the developmental tasks of the age, educational status, special needs, prevailing mental health condition, economical status of the family and family members being quarantined due to infection. These inexorable conditions may affect the mental health and various dimensions of behaviour of children in late childhood and early teens. With this background an attempt was made to study the mental health and wellbeing of late childhood children in COVID 19 lockdown.

Methods: The study was qualitative explorative research conducted in October 2020, using Snow ball method of sampling through online (Google form) questionnaire on mental health and wellbeing of late child hood age group during COVID 19 lockdown, which consisted of 35 items listed under seven mental health dimensions.

Results: Findings indicate that except for temperament, all the other six mental health dimensions were independent of the variable-age of the child as the p values were above the designated alpha value (0.05).

Discussion: The pandemic and efforts of governments to control its’ spread through stringent measures at all levels has created a situation, in which children have lost their precious period of time in home confinement, isolation, restricted movement, want of socialization, lack of academic and other pursuits. These circumstances affected the mental health of late childhood children and manifested in to mental health problems in seven dimensions as examined in this study.

 Conclusions: The study allows to recommend appropriate mental health intervention programmes for school children to overcome mental health problems and adjust to the new normal situation in a healthy way.