コロナ禍長期化における児童・青年の身体活動とメンタルヘルス

抄録

In this paper, we report on how the prolonged COVID-19 pandemic affected children and adolescents’ physical activity and mental health. Previous studies in PubMed revealed that only one of the 107 studies currently reported the impact of the prolonged. Therefore, a web-based questionnaire survey was conducted in Japan on February 10, 2022. A total of 236 adults (84 males and 152 females) responded to the electronic survey. Participants with children in the elementary school reported that their opportunities for exercise had decreased (100%), while 11% of participants with children in middle school or high school reported that they thought their opportunities had increased considerably. As for stress, 100% of participants with middle school or older children reported feeling it. In the KH Coder analysis of the free text, elementary school children seemed concerned about adjusting to life changes such as being silent about school lunches. On the other hand, junior high school and high school students were found to be adapting to the life changes caused by the COVID-19 but were also facing increased stress and new infection risks. It is necessary to divide the support for children and adolescents in prolonged COVID-19 pandemic according to their age.