An overview of spanish students' psychological adjustment during covid pandemic

"Introduction. All world had suffered the consequences of a health crisis due to Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). More specifically, Madrid was one of the cities most affected by this health crisis and where the restrictions have been the harshest. All population suffered psychological consequences of social isolation. Previous research on the effects of social isolation in children shows important effects on aspects, such as feelings of sadness, anger, frustration, and apathy (Biordi and Nicholson, 2013; Brooks et al., 2020). Other indicative aspects of well-being and regulation during childhood have also been found to be altered, such as sleep patterns, potty training, or challenging behaviors (Simon and Walker, 2018). Changes have also been observed in the levels of anxiety (increased fear, worry, obsession, or rumination) and depression (depressed mood, lack of interest and motivation, or sadness; Teo et al., 2013; Urbina, 2020). The objective of the present study was to verify whether the psychological adjustment of Spanish preschoolers and primary students has changed since the health crisis started. Method. A total of 291 families with children aged between 3.2 and 11.1 years (53,9% girls) participated in the study. These families have a medium socioeconomic background. The sample was divided into two age groups: 76 preschool families (59% girls) and 215 primary families (52% girls). The first measurement point was in February 2020 (just before health crisis started), the second point of measurement was during confinement in Madrid in March 2020 and the last measurement point was in February 2021 (one year after the health crisis started). Some scales of the questionnaire System of Evaluation of Children and Adolescents (SENA, Fernández-Pinto et al., 2015) were used. The selected scales were Attentional Problems, Depression, Challenging Behaviors, Emotional Regulation, Hyperactivity, and Willingness to study. Results. Comparison between the pretest and posttest scores for the Early Childhood Education group indicated very little variation in the mean scores of the five dimensions between T1-T2. In the same way, no differences between T1-T3 and T2-T3 were found in preschoolers. The situation for primary students were slightly different but in general no differences were found between T1-T3 and some improvement were found between T2-T3. Discussion. These results show that the children apparently were able to emerge unscathed from the extreme situation that they had to live through."