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

ABSTRACT

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.