Mental Health of Children and Adolescents in Times of Pandemic

Abstract

INTRODUCTION: Neglect with a mental health theme is notorious, the current pandemic of the covid-19, has made the subject become issues to be rethought, especially in the lives of children and adolescents. METHODS: An integrative review of the literature was performed on the electronic databases MEDLINE, LILACS, SciELO, Cochrane and CAPES Journals Webpage. This review included full original articles, published from January 2020 to May 2021, in Portuguese, English or Spanish about the impacts of the pandemic coronavirus on the mental health of children and adolescents. Studies that included children and adolescents with mental illness history as well as pre-publications, editorials, opinion articles, monographs and theses were excluded. RESULTS: A total of 348 articles were obtained, 334 were screened by title and abstract and 26 were selected for full-text reading. After all, 7 research papers were included. The studies evaluated the relationship between anxiety cases and quarantine (85.71%); the occurrence of psychological stress and emotional changes in this context (71.43%); the relationship between depression and social isolation (57.14%), the incidence of abuse, violence and child exploitation (28.57%); the impacts on the LGBTQ population (14.29%). DISCUSSION: The pandemic significantly affected the mental health of children and adolescents, presenting gender, age and social and financial issues as aggravating factors. Studies have pointed out the occurrence of anxiety and depression, with women, adolescents and LGBTQI + groups having a higher incidence. As solutions, there are the multidisciplinary work between families, health professionals and school environments with the purpose of offering greater security, knowledge, prevention and care. CONCLUSION: The mental health of children and adolescents was affected in a unique way due to the pandemic, resulting in diseases such as anxiety and depression. To reduce the problem, the school is important in promoting mental health.