¿Cómo han vivido los niños el confinamiento por el coronavirus?

Abstract

Introduction: children have feelings and experiences that they cannot or will not express and that may manifest through their drawings and imagination. The Asociación Española de Pediatría de Atención Primaria (Spanish Association of Primary Care Pediatrics, AEPap) wanted to explore how children have experienced the confinement. Material and methods: we organized a contest through the Family and Health website. The study population consisted of children residing anywhere in Spain aged 3 to 16 years. The works submitted were drawings, micro stories or micro videos. Results: we received 53 works from children in different autonomous communities and gave 5 awards. The elements featured most frequently were the coronavirus, figures of children indoors, a rainbow in the clouds and health care professionals. Some of the subjects expressed in the works were boredom, missing grandparents and friends, trust in health care professionals, a positive perception of the change in life in the family, the improvement in environmental pollution and a positive view that everything will turn out well. Conclusions: the results obtained in this study suggest a generalized optimism and allow us to conclude that drawings, stories and videos are a useful tool to analyze the perception of this population in risk situations. We also ought to highlight the interest of primary care paediatricians in how children have experienced the confinement imposed due to the coronavirus pandemic and raise awareness that children’s drawings should be carefully studied.