A Year without schools! children's narratives in (un) expected times

This text is about the childhoods we read and infer in children's narratives. Herein, the times we offer to the children, their collective care and education processes, time in research and the future prospects in face of the current situation, are parts connected to the object of reflection. The discussions are part of the research on children's experiences during the Covid-19 pandemic and how this social fact circumscribes many changes in family organization and in relations with people and places. The pandemic narrated by the children follows the events chronology, such as the closing of schools in the first semester of 2020, expansion of locomotion restrictions, discourse of the vaccine emergency, and, finally, the permanence and aggravation of the pandemic, the discovery of the vaccine and the increase in the number of deaths. The main argument is that children are affected by these changes and they are recorded in the questions, reports, dialogues and photographs. Therefore, reading the children's narratives as cultural constructions in this historical time is a way to understanding how they experience the times of home and school that have become fluid and crossed daily. The events and narrative times reveal the complexity of being a child in a setting that imprisons freedom, constrains interactions, occupies a place in play, institutes illness and death as a subject and does not offer a change forecast. © 2021 UNIVERSIDADE FEEVALE . All Rights Reserved.

Parental Involvement during Pandemic Times: Challenges and Opportunities

Due to COVID-19, many countries implemented emergency plans, such as lockdown and school closures. This new situation has significantly affected families, namely, the involvement required to support children's learning at home. The current study aimed to analyze Portuguese parents' perceptions of their home-based parental involvement in their children's learning during the lockdown and school closures in 2020 due to COVID-19. An online survey, using a closed-ended questionnaire, was employed. Variables included parents' sociodemographic and COVID-19 related characteristics;students' sociodemographic characteristics;distance learning context;parental involvement;and students' autonomy. Data were collected from a sample of 21,333 parents with children from elementary school to secondary education, and statistical data analysis was performed using IBM SPSS Statistics 26. Findings revealed that Portuguese parents supported their children during the pandemic mainly through the monitoring of attention in classes and task realization. However, several variables appear to significantly determine parental involvement time, which is higher when students attend public schools, when they are less autonomous and younger, when parents' level of education is lower, when the child is a boy (except in secondary education where gender is not relevant), and when the online school time is higher. Findings highlight the need for a significant investment of time from parents, particularly of primary school children, making it difficult to cohere work or telework with school activities. Implications for policies, schools, families are discussed in order to promote children's learning and success.

FACTORS ASSOCIATED WITH MENTAL SUFFERING IN PEOPLE WITH DIABETES MELLITUS DURING THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC

Objective: to analyze the factors associated with mental distress in people with diabetes mellitus during the COVID-19 pandemic. Method: cross-sectional study, conducted in two Brazilian virtual communities of the Facebook platform, in the period from August 2020 to January 2021. The sample totaled 111 people with diabetes. The evaluation of health conditions was performed using an electronic form, and the Self Report Questionnaire-20 was used to identify mental suffering. Descriptive and inferential analyses were expressed by frequencies and simple and multiple logistic regression. Results: mental suffering is associated with being female, having a previous history of mental disorders (depression and anxiety), having been diagnosed with diabetes for more than six years, and the presence of ophthalmologic complications, which increase the chances of emotional instability. Conclusion: the study offers subsidies to the direction of support strategies that minimize the psychosocial impacts of the pandemic on people with diabetes. © 2022, Universidade Federal do Parana. All rights reserved.

Olfactory sensory evaluation in newborn children of women infected with COVID-19 during pregnancy

Introduction: In adults, olfactory loss is one of the earliest and most frequent acute clinical manifestations of SARS-CoV-2 infection. The number of children infected with SARS-CoV-2 is relatively small, perhaps due to the lower expression of Angiotensin Converting Enzyme 2 (ACE2) in children compared to adults. Little is known about foetal impairment in mothers infected with SARS-CoV-2. This paper describes an ongoing scientific project on smell perception in infants. Objective: The goal of the study is to develop and validate a behavioural evaluative scale of olfactory perception in healthy newborns and to apply this scale to newborn children of women infected with COVID-19 during pregnancy comparing to newborn children of women without COVID-19 infection history, in order to compare these groups. Methods: This is a retrospective comparative analytical cohort study of 300 newborns exposed and unexposed to COVID-19 during pregnancy. The data collection will follow the experimental procedure in a previous study that explored odours of the maternal breastmilk, vanilla (sweet) and distilled water (neutral). A coffee smell was implemented as an addition to this previous study in order to include acid/bitterness category to the categories of stimuli. Discussion: It is feasible to argue the hypothesis of the involvement of the foetus' olfactory bulb as one of the indelible pathophysiological manifestations to the clinical diagnosis of COVID-19 with neurosensory olfactory deficit in foetuses and newborns affected by intrauterine infection. This study aims to investigate if newborn children of women infected with COVID-19 during pregnancy have olfactory sensory changes. The clinical trial was registered in the Brazilian Registry of Clinical Trials (ReBEC- RBR-65qxs2). © 2021 The authors. All Rights Reserved.