![]() Mental health is crucial in childhood and adolescence since many mental disorders that start early in life are likely to persist through adulthood ( Johnson, Dupuis, Piche, Clayborne, & Colman, 2018 Otto et al., 2020). Mental health can be defined as “a state of well-being in which an individual realizes his or her own abilities, can cope with the normal stresses of life, can work productively and is able to make a contribution to his or her community” ( WHO, 2018). There is a growing consensus that the mental health consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic in underage populations are a major public health priority and that good quality studies are imperative to expand and improve the evidence on the effects of the pandemic on mental health ( Campion, Javed, Sartorius, & Marmot, 2020 WHO, 2020b). Children and adolescents have been particularly affected by the abrupt decrease in and disruption of social activities and interactions, which can impact mental health and result in both immediate and long-term affective and behavioral problems ( Mohler-Kuo, Dzemaili, Foster, Werlen, & Walitza, 2021 Orben, Tomova, & Blakemore, 2020 UNESCO, 2020). ![]() The resulting interruption of leisure activities, social distancing, and isolation can have negative consequences on mental health ( Hossain et al., 2020 Vindegaard & Benros, 2020 Xiong et al., 2020). To protect vulnerable populations, Switzerland – where the present study was conducted – faced a complete lockdown during the first wave in spring 2020, followed by a partial lockdown and strict prevention and mitigation measures, which have been in place over the winter months through spring 2021. Our results highlight the need for targeted actions to promote green time and raise awareness about the detrimental effect of screen time on children’s and adolescents’ mental health.ĭeclared a worldwide pandemic on Janu( WHO, 2020a), the COVID-19 crisis has changed the lives of individuals of all age groups in an unprecedented way. Gender, age, perceived economic situation of the family, Body Mass Index and the availability of green space nearby all influenced stable measures of green time and screen time (i.e., random intercepts). Furthermore, they did not influence each other over time. However, within-person deviations of screen time and green time during the pandemic did not consistently predict mental health. Results showed that, at the between-person level, screen time was a risk factor and green time a protective factor of mental health. We analyzed the data using an extended version of the Random Intercept Cross-Lagged Panel Model with time-invariant socio-demographic covariates and mental health as outcome. ![]() We used data collected between autumn 2020 and spring 2021 from 844 participants aged 5 to 19 of a population-based, prospective cohort study in Canton Ticino, Italian-speaking Switzerland. We investigated how both influenced each other during the pandemic, how they affected children’s and adolescents' mental health, and which role socio-demographic characteristics have in predicting screen time, green time, and mental health. In the present study, we focused on two activities that have been likely affected by mitigation measures: screen time and green time. The COVID-19 pandemic has affected the life of children and adolescents in an unprecedented way.
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