ABSTRACT
Introduction: As the Covid-19 pandemic brought about travel and social restrictions, many activities including specialty training events for medical specialty trainees moved online. The European Federation of Psychiatric Trainees, European Society for Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and hild and Adolescent Psychiatry (CAP) Section of UEMS joined forces to turn challenges into an opportunity for CAP trainees and jointly organized the 1st ESCAP/ UEMS-CAP/EFPT Training Day. Objective(s): The main aim was to offer CAP trainees throughout Europe high quality and up to date training content free of charge, making use of the different strengths of the organizing associations. Method(s): Content of the Training Day was prepared according to feedback and demand from CAP trainees, collected through a questionnaire prior to the event. This event took place online and ran 9 webinars/workshops as well as a plenary case session where trainees presented real life cases made more challenging with the pandemic and representatives from 3 organizing associations discussed the cases from different perspectives. Remaining webinars/workshops covered a wide range of themes including but not limited to research, leadership, administrative and management skills as well as scientific topics such as eating disorders, medically unexplained symptoms, psychosis. Result(s): Almost 200 CAP trainees from 31 countries participated in the event and received certificates of completion. The outcome of the event is being evaluated via quantitative and qualitative methods and similar events will be planned accordingly. Conclusion(s): 1st ESCAP/UEMS-CAP/EFPT Training Day for CAP trainees was a success for reaching many trainees from across Europe and experimenting with different formats which will inspire future initiatives.
ABSTRACT
Since the onset of COVID-19 pandemic, concerns have been raised about the effects of the pandemic on youth with pre-existing mental health disorders. The present study aimed to explore change in emotional and behavioral symptoms (mood states) and daily behaviors during the lockdown in a clinical sample of children and adolescents in Greece. A cross-sectional survey, using the CoRonavIrus Health Impact Survey (CRISIS) Questionnaire, was completed by 738 parents of children and adolescents aged 2–18 years attending 12 outpatient child and adolescent mental health services (CAMHS) across four geographical regions in Greece. Participants reported at a single time-point on their children's mood states and daily behaviors 3 months prior to the pandemic and during the past two weeks, as well as on life changes during the spring 2020 lockdown. Using paired samples t-tests no change was found in mean mood states scores pre- and post-pandemic onset in all subgroups investigated. Using McNemar's test, we found that among individual mood states, some symptoms increased, and others decreased or remained stable. Additionally, participants did rate several of their daily behaviours as having overall worsened, e.g., reduced sleep or time spent outdoors during the lockdown, as compared to 3 months prior the pandemic. Longitudinal studies are needed to ascertain which factors buffer against deterioration of mental health among children with pre-pandemic psychiatric or developmental disorders, in order to inform public mental health and educational policy.