How children in Sweden accessed and perceived information during the first phase of the Covid-19 pandemic

Abstract

Aim: To describe how children in Sweden accessed and perceived information about SARS-CoV2 and Covid-19 during the first phase of the outbreak. Methods: This study is a substudy of an international cross-sectional online mixed methods survey examining elements of children’s health literacy in relation to Covid-19. The survey included multiple-choice questions, open-ended questions and drawings and collected information from 50 Swedish children (7–12 years). Data were analysed concurrently on a descriptive level using statistics and content analysis. Quantitative and qualitative data, including the drawings, were considered equally important and resulted in six categories, illuminating how children accessed and perceived information about the pandemic. Results: The survey showed that children accessed information mainly from school but also from TV. They preferred information from reliable sources. Children reported the information they accessed as easy to understand and it prompted them to ask new questions. They reported they knew a lot about the pandemic, for example, the potential danger to themselves and others and how to act to protect themselves and others. They perceived the pandemic as an intrusion on their lives. Conclusions: This study indicates that Swedish children between 7 and 12 years old were well informed about SARS-CoV2 and Covid-19 during the first phase of the pandemic. School was shown to be an important source of information. The children could explain how to act to protect themselves and others from becoming infected by the virus.

Children’s Views of SARS-CoV-2 and COVID-19 Preventive Practices: Comparing Verbal and Visual Empirical Evidence

“…These findings indicate the need to support children, who will probably face similar emergencies later in life, in understanding SARS-CoV-2 and its resulting disease (Manches and Ainsworth, 2022). Consequently, it is essential to scaffold children's understanding of COVID-19 and assist them in coping with this unpredictable condition, to empower their responsible participation in mitigating the pandemic (Garcia de Avila et al, 2020;Provenzi et al, 2020;Maftei et al, 2022;Manches and Ainsworth, 2022;Rydström et al, 2022), and to prevent traumatic effects (Assante and Candel, 2020;Idoiaga et al, 2020).…”

“…Few studies so far have investigated children's views of the pandemic (Idoiaga et al, 2020;Thompson et al, 2021;Rydström et al, 2022), although a rapidly growing body of research related to COVID-19 and its consequences on children's wellbeing has evolved during the last 2 years (e.g., Garcia de Avila et al, 2020;Valadez et al, 2020). Interestingly, despite the previously documented lack of appropriate understanding of infectious diseases and prevention practices in non-experts (Jee et al, 2015), recent studies report high levels of awareness of COVID-19 even in young children (Rydström et al, 2022), and their sensitivity in perceiving and adopting adults' reactions to the pandemic (Valadez et al, 2020;Thompson et al, 2021).…”

“…Few studies so far have investigated children's views of the pandemic (Idoiaga et al, 2020;Thompson et al, 2021;Rydström et al, 2022), although a rapidly growing body of research related to COVID-19 and its consequences on children's wellbeing has evolved during the last 2 years (e.g., Garcia de Avila et al, 2020;Valadez et al, 2020). Interestingly, despite the previously documented lack of appropriate understanding of infectious diseases and prevention practices in non-experts (Jee et al, 2015), recent studies report high levels of awareness of COVID-19 even in young children (Rydström et al, 2022), and their sensitivity in perceiving and adopting adults' reactions to the pandemic (Valadez et al, 2020;Thompson et al, 2021). This awareness has been revealed in children's ability to distinguish SARS-CoV-2 (cause) from ; to name common symptoms of the disease (for instance cough, fever, or sneeze); to understand the possibility of asymptomatic infection; to recognize the necessity of preventive and mitigation practices such as social distancing or handwashing; to describe airborne transmission and high contagiousness of the virus (Idoiaga et al, 2020;Bray et al, 2021b;Christidou et al, 2021;Martinerie et al, 2021;Thompson et al, 2021;Bonoti et al, 2022;Maftei et al, 2022;Rydström et al, 2022).…”

“…Acknowledging the multimodal character of perceiving SARS-CoV-2 and COVID-19 and that much of the public information about these issues has been visually communicated, previous studies (Bray et al, 2021a;Christidou et al, 2021;Martinerie et al, 2021;Thompson et al, 2021;Rydström et al, 2022;Bonoti et al, 2022) have exploited the potential of children's drawings to capture their views when combined with verbal tasks (Driessnack and Gallo, 2013). Children's drawings of SARS-CoV-2 vastly replicated the visual representations widely available in the media, i.e., its sphere-like shape with spikes (Martinerie et al, 2021;Thompson et al, 2021;Bonoti et al, 2022), while instances of anthropomorphic depictions were also common (Martinerie et al, 2021;Bonoti et al, 2022).…”

“…Some children have also expressed visually their understanding of the process of transmission (Bray et al, 2021a;Martinerie et al, 2021;Thompson et al, 2021;Bonoti et al, 2022). Moreover, their depictions of COVID-19 preventive measures have been found to emphasize advisable hygienic practices, such as handwashing, social distancing, or wearing a mask (Bray et al, 2021a;Christidou et al, 2021;Martinerie et al, 2021;Thompson et al, 2021;Rydström et al, 2022).…”