THE CHANGES IN CHILDREN’S SCREEN TIME AND SUBJECTIVE HEALTH COMPLAINTS BEFORE AND AFTER SCHOOL CLOSED TO PREVENT COVID-19 PANDEMIC

N. Yamada¹, R. Goto², K. Tamura¹, K. Nakatsuka², K. Horibe², K. Uchida², K. Saeki², E. Perrein², H. Encho¹, M. Mukaijo¹, M. Tezuka¹, R. Ono²

Background: The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic forced many people around the world to stay at home and self-isolate for some time. In Japan, the state of emergency was declared nationwide from April 7th, 2020 to May 25th, 2020 to prevent the spread of COVID-19 pandemic and all schools were closed. That event caused disruptions in daily routines and increased screen time and psychological stress in children. These factors could have increased subjective health complaints such as “headache” or “annoyed”. In July 2020, it has been about a month since school restarted. Although children’s lives were returning to what they were before school were closed, whether children’s lifestyle and subjective health complaints were back to normal or not remained uncertain.

Purpose: To investigate how children’s screen time and subjective health complaints changed before and after school closed to prevent COVID-19 pandemic.

Methods: This study’s design was cross-sectional study. We invited the children aged 10-12 years old from two public schools in Kobe, Japan 2017, 2019, 2020. We assessed each screen time (tv, mobile phone, and video games) by self-reported questionnaires from September to October 2017 (T1), from September to October 2019 (T2), and in July 2020 (T3). We classified children as <2h/day or ≥2h/day about each screen time (tv, mobile phone, and video games). We assessed subjective health complaints by a self-reported questionnaire at T1, T2, and T3. It has 9-items and responses were given on a 4-point rating scale (1 = “always” and 4 = “never”). The children scoring 1 or 2 at least once in the questionnaire were classified as having symptoms (defined as ‘’total health complain’’). We used a chi-squared test to investigate the difference of screen time and subjective health complaints between each time point.

Results: This study included 227 children at T1 (107 girls; 47.1 %, mean age 11.02 years), 189 children at T2 (92 girls; 48.7 %, mean age 10.97 years at) and 191 children at T3 (89 girls; 47.6 %, mean age 10.85 years). The rate of children who were classified as ≥2h/day about video games at T3(35.8%) was significantly higher than at T1(15.9%) and T2 (21.4%) (p < 0.01). There were no significant differences between each time point for the rate of children classified as ≥2h/day about both of tv and mobile phone (tv | T1: 64.3% T2: 57.1% T3: 60.3% cellphone | T1: 22% T2: 27% T3: 27.2). The rate of children who were defined as total health complaints at T3 (70.7%) was significantly higher than at T1 (57.7%) and T2 (58.2%) (p < 0.01).

Conclusion(s): This study demonstrated that children’s screen time (video games) and subjective health complaints changed negatively before and after school closed to prevent COVID-19 pandemic. This is the first study showing the demographic changes in lifestyle and subjective health complaints related to COVID-19 pandemic.

Implications: This study suggested that negative changes in children’s lifestyle and health complaints couldn’t be easily reversed.

Funding, acknowledgements: None declared.

Keywords: COVID-19, children, lifestyle

Topic: COVID-19

Did this work require ethics approval? Yes

Institution: Kobe University Graduate School of Health Sciences

Committee: Research Ethics Committee

Ethics number: 545-3