Impact of school closure on children’s emotional health and behavior

Abstract

Covid-19 has worsened the situation all over the world. To improve the conditions and stop the spread of pandemic our government has taken many tough steps, one of them is closing the schools. The objective of the study is to assess the emotional health and behavior of children during school closure. In this research sample is collected from parents of Nanded city, Pune using random selection method. A number of 102 parents responded to the online survey consisting of Strength and Difficulties questionnaire (SDQ) developed by the child psychiatrist Robert N. Goodman for the children aged 4-11 years. The questionnaire was created using Google forms and survey was done through WhatsApp and email links, following the social distancing norms. The data collected were converted into excel data sheet and analyzed and interpreted using descriptive statistics Mean and Mean Percentage Differences and compared manually to the scale range. The result shows a significant increase/decrease in emotions and behavior of children.