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Impact of the COVID-19 Italian Lockdown on the Physiological and Psychological Well-Being of Children with Fragile X Syndrome and Their Families

On 10 March 2020, in Italy, a total lockdown was put in place to limit viral transmission of COVID-19 infection as much as possible. Research on the psychological impact of the COVID-19 pandemic highlighted detrimental effects in children and their parents. However, little is known about such effect...

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Autores principales: Di Giorgio, Elisa, Polli, Roberta, Lunghi, Marco, Murgia, Alessandra
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8199386/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34071956
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph18115752
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author Di Giorgio, Elisa
Polli, Roberta
Lunghi, Marco
Murgia, Alessandra
author_facet Di Giorgio, Elisa
Polli, Roberta
Lunghi, Marco
Murgia, Alessandra
author_sort Di Giorgio, Elisa
collection PubMed
description On 10 March 2020, in Italy, a total lockdown was put in place to limit viral transmission of COVID-19 infection as much as possible. Research on the psychological impact of the COVID-19 pandemic highlighted detrimental effects in children and their parents. However, little is known about such effects in children with neurodevelopment disorders and their caregivers. The present study investigated how the lockdown has impacted the physiological and psychological well-being of children with Fragile X-Syndrome (FXS), aged from 2 to 16 years, and their mothers. In an online survey, 48 mothers of FXS children reported their perception of self-efficacy as caregivers and, at the same time, their children’s sleep habits, behavioral and emotional difficulties during, and retrospectively, before the lockdown. Results showed a general worsening of sleep quality, and increasing behavioral problems. Although mothers reported a reduction in external support, their perception of self-efficacy as caregivers did not change during the home confinement compared to the period before. Overall, the present study suggested that specific interventions to manage sleep problems, as well as specific therapeutic and social support for increasing children and mother psychological well-being, need to be in place to mitigate the long-term effects of a lockdown.
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spelling pubmed-81993862021-06-14 Impact of the COVID-19 Italian Lockdown on the Physiological and Psychological Well-Being of Children with Fragile X Syndrome and Their Families Di Giorgio, Elisa Polli, Roberta Lunghi, Marco Murgia, Alessandra Int J Environ Res Public Health Article On 10 March 2020, in Italy, a total lockdown was put in place to limit viral transmission of COVID-19 infection as much as possible. Research on the psychological impact of the COVID-19 pandemic highlighted detrimental effects in children and their parents. However, little is known about such effects in children with neurodevelopment disorders and their caregivers. The present study investigated how the lockdown has impacted the physiological and psychological well-being of children with Fragile X-Syndrome (FXS), aged from 2 to 16 years, and their mothers. In an online survey, 48 mothers of FXS children reported their perception of self-efficacy as caregivers and, at the same time, their children’s sleep habits, behavioral and emotional difficulties during, and retrospectively, before the lockdown. Results showed a general worsening of sleep quality, and increasing behavioral problems. Although mothers reported a reduction in external support, their perception of self-efficacy as caregivers did not change during the home confinement compared to the period before. Overall, the present study suggested that specific interventions to manage sleep problems, as well as specific therapeutic and social support for increasing children and mother psychological well-being, need to be in place to mitigate the long-term effects of a lockdown. MDPI 2021-05-27 /pmc/articles/PMC8199386/ /pubmed/34071956 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph18115752 Text en © 2021 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
Di Giorgio, Elisa
Polli, Roberta
Lunghi, Marco
Murgia, Alessandra
Impact of the COVID-19 Italian Lockdown on the Physiological and Psychological Well-Being of Children with Fragile X Syndrome and Their Families
title Impact of the COVID-19 Italian Lockdown on the Physiological and Psychological Well-Being of Children with Fragile X Syndrome and Their Families
title_full Impact of the COVID-19 Italian Lockdown on the Physiological and Psychological Well-Being of Children with Fragile X Syndrome and Their Families
title_fullStr Impact of the COVID-19 Italian Lockdown on the Physiological and Psychological Well-Being of Children with Fragile X Syndrome and Their Families
title_full_unstemmed Impact of the COVID-19 Italian Lockdown on the Physiological and Psychological Well-Being of Children with Fragile X Syndrome and Their Families
title_short Impact of the COVID-19 Italian Lockdown on the Physiological and Psychological Well-Being of Children with Fragile X Syndrome and Their Families
title_sort impact of the covid-19 italian lockdown on the physiological and psychological well-being of children with fragile x syndrome and their families
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8199386/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34071956
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph18115752
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