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Lifestyle Pathways Affecting Children’s Mental Health in Japan during the COVID-19 Pandemic

The recent prolonged COVID-19 pandemic has worsened the daily lives of preschoolers and elementary school children worldwide. Although these changes may have affected their mental health, the full picture still remains unknown. Since March 2020, Japan has intermittently experienced several COVID-19...

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Autores principales: Sawa, Satomi, Hagihara, Akihito
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2023
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10297420/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37371175
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/children10060943
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author Sawa, Satomi
Hagihara, Akihito
author_facet Sawa, Satomi
Hagihara, Akihito
author_sort Sawa, Satomi
collection PubMed
description The recent prolonged COVID-19 pandemic has worsened the daily lives of preschoolers and elementary school children worldwide. Although these changes may have affected their mental health, the full picture still remains unknown. Since March 2020, Japan has intermittently experienced several COVID-19 waves. This survey was conducted between February and March 2022. In this study, we investigated the pathways by which specific lifestyle factors (such as exercise, sleep, diet, and life skills) affect physical/psychosocial health (PPH) in 1183 preschoolers (3–5 years old) and 3156 elementary school children (6–11 years old) in Toyama Prefecture, Japan. These pathways were examined using a path analysis. Consequently, “life skills” was found to be the factor most strongly associated with PPH in both preschoolers and elementary school children (p < 0.001). Furthermore, it was associated with the physical activity score and with PPH via physical activity. Moreover, both boys’ and girls’ mental health declined with age among elementary school children (p < 0.001). The results of the current study may be helpful for early interventions (around the start of elementary school) at home and at school to improve children’s mental health during the COVID-19 pandemic.
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spelling pubmed-102974202023-06-28 Lifestyle Pathways Affecting Children’s Mental Health in Japan during the COVID-19 Pandemic Sawa, Satomi Hagihara, Akihito Children (Basel) Article The recent prolonged COVID-19 pandemic has worsened the daily lives of preschoolers and elementary school children worldwide. Although these changes may have affected their mental health, the full picture still remains unknown. Since March 2020, Japan has intermittently experienced several COVID-19 waves. This survey was conducted between February and March 2022. In this study, we investigated the pathways by which specific lifestyle factors (such as exercise, sleep, diet, and life skills) affect physical/psychosocial health (PPH) in 1183 preschoolers (3–5 years old) and 3156 elementary school children (6–11 years old) in Toyama Prefecture, Japan. These pathways were examined using a path analysis. Consequently, “life skills” was found to be the factor most strongly associated with PPH in both preschoolers and elementary school children (p < 0.001). Furthermore, it was associated with the physical activity score and with PPH via physical activity. Moreover, both boys’ and girls’ mental health declined with age among elementary school children (p < 0.001). The results of the current study may be helpful for early interventions (around the start of elementary school) at home and at school to improve children’s mental health during the COVID-19 pandemic. MDPI 2023-05-26 /pmc/articles/PMC10297420/ /pubmed/37371175 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/children10060943 Text en © 2023 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Sawa, Satomi
Hagihara, Akihito
Lifestyle Pathways Affecting Children’s Mental Health in Japan during the COVID-19 Pandemic
title Lifestyle Pathways Affecting Children’s Mental Health in Japan during the COVID-19 Pandemic
title_full Lifestyle Pathways Affecting Children’s Mental Health in Japan during the COVID-19 Pandemic
title_fullStr Lifestyle Pathways Affecting Children’s Mental Health in Japan during the COVID-19 Pandemic
title_full_unstemmed Lifestyle Pathways Affecting Children’s Mental Health in Japan during the COVID-19 Pandemic
title_short Lifestyle Pathways Affecting Children’s Mental Health in Japan during the COVID-19 Pandemic
title_sort lifestyle pathways affecting children’s mental health in japan during the covid-19 pandemic
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10297420/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37371175
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/children10060943
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