Authors (including presenting author) :
Tse VWS(1), Tse MYY(1), Chong KSC(1), Fung SCS(1),Chan IWS(1), Chan WKY (2), Leung SSK(2), Yau YS(2), Ng M(2), Lau MY(2), But BWM(2)
Affiliation :
(1)Department of Clinical Psychology, Queen Elizabeth Hospital of Hong Kong(2)Department of Medicine, Queen Elizabeth Hospital of Hong Kong
Introduction :
During COVID-19 pandemic, children and adolescents have undergone drastic disruptions to their routine due to prolonged school suspension and other disease containment measures. Similar to SARS patients, COVID-19 patients also required hospitalisation and isolation. According to previous studies, recovered SARS patients were found to develop symptoms of depression, anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder upon discharge and the magnitude of psychological distress was determined by variables such as social satisfaction, gender and occupation. SARS patients also reported to feel stigmatized upon discharged which was likely to have an impact on their emotional adjustment. Given the previous findings on recovered SARS patients and that children and adolescents are more susceptible to stressors, more studies are warranted to look at the mental health of children and adolescents recovered with COVID19.
Objectives :
This study aimed to explore the psychological adjustment of children and adolescents who recovered from COVID-19. Findings of the current study would provide information for further service development so as to better suit the need of our patients when similar situations arise. This study looked at areas including mood adjustment (anxiety and depression), post-traumatic stress symptoms, social support and perceived self-stigma as a recovered COVID-19 patient.
Methodology :
The current study assessed psychosocial adjustment in children and adolescents who recovered from COVID-19 with a set of psychosocial questionnaires at both 1 month (T1) and 3 months (T2) after discharge. The set of psychosocial questionnaires included: My Feeling, Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD-7), Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-9) and Children’s Revised Impact of Event Scale (CRIES-8). Questions exploring self-stigma, perceived level of social support, illness experience and demographics were also included. Due to the small sample size, descriptive analysis of the different variables in the study would be conducted to examine the characteristics of the sample at both T1 (n=10) and T2 (n=5).
Result & Outcome :
Overall, majority of the participants did not exhibit significant mood adjustment problems at T1 and T2. Participants also reported improvement in their mood over time after discharge. It was worth noting that participants with higher level of self-stigma also scored higher on PTSD symptoms severity. Despite the relatively small sample size of the current study, screening of the recovered COVID-19 paediatric patients at their first medical outpatient appointment upon discharge enabled us to identify those in need for more support for psychological adjustment and to provide support to them in a timely manner.
