Online learning-related screen use and associated factors in school-aged children in Shanghai during the COVID-19 epi-demic

Objective To understand the online learning-related screen use duration and screen types in school-aged children in Shanghai during the COVID-19 epidemic. Methods Random clustering sampling was used to select 5 591 parents of students from 8 primary and junior schools that are in the sampling pool of the national myopia survey in districts of Jiading, Pudong and Baoshan in Shanghai in April 2020. Electronic questionnaire was administered to parents regarding their child's online learning-related screen use. Results On average, the median weekly duration of online learning-related screen use was 13.33 hours, the curricular and extracurricular parts of which were 10(8.75, 16.67) and 0(0, 3.33) hours, respectively. About 29.44% of investigated school-aged children only used small-size screen for online learning. Children in higher grades, being myopic and parents neither being myopic were associated with reporting higher weekly duration(P<0.05);children in higher grades of primary school and parents neither being myopic were associated with a higher likelihood of using small-size screen for online learning(P<0.05). Conclusion At the early stage of the COVID-19 epidemic, the burden associated with online-learning-related screen use was high in school-aged children in Shanghai. Health education regarding online learning-related screen use should be addressed in parents to guide their children to use screen appropriately. © 2022 Ｃｈｉｎ Ｊ Ｓｃｈ Ｈｅａｌｔｈ. All rights reserved.

Screen time and associated factors among preschoolers in Wuxi during COVID-19 outbreak / 中国学校卫生

Objective@#To investigate the current status of screen time in preschoolers during the outbreak of Corona Virus Disease 2019 (COVID-19), and the influences of parent-child active play and school online education on screen time.@*Methods@#A total of 2 370 preschoolers were chosen through clustering sampling from 7 kindergartens in Wuxi urban areas. Questionnaire survey was administered to parents for child screen time, active play, online education as well as characteristics information.@*Results@#A total of 1 428(60.3%) preschoolers reported more than 1 hour screen time a day, and 1 915(80.8%) preschoolers reported more than 20 minutes consecutive screen time. Compared with the weekend before the COVID-19 outbreak, 1 551(65.4%) preschoolers reported an increase of 10 minutes in screen time perday, and 1 444(60.9%) reported an increase of 5 minutes for one sersion. Logistic regression analysis showed that after controlling for confounding factors, high frequency of parent-child active play, parents’ exercise habits, online education from kindergartens and children’s active participation in the online education were negatively associated with preschoolers’ excessive and increased screen time during this period(OR=0.39-0.79, P<0.05).@*Conclusion@#During the COVID-19 outbreak, preschoolers’ media use in Wuxi city is worrisome. Parent-child active play, parents’ exercise and online education from kindergartens may play a positive role in reducing preschoolers’ media use.