Stay at Home Order—Psychological Stress in Children, Adolescents, and Parents during COVID-19 Quarantine—Data of the CoCo-Fakt Cohort Study, Cologne

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The study shows the stressful effects of quarantines on families with adolescent children, obtaining results that may have important implications for the implementation of measures or coping strategies to help protect the mental health of adolescents and their families during periods of isolation.

Introduction section.

The introduction provides a good context for the importance of this type of research. It is well organized and clearly states the theoretical background. However, here are some suggestions.

Although the vast majority of people are aware of the enormous incidence of the COVID-19 pandemic, it might be appropriate to provide official data on the incidence of this virus globally, and perhaps more specific data on the number of children and adolescents affected by the virus. This would give context to why restrictions are and have been in place worldwide, having their impact on the mental health of the population. Specific information on the situation in the country where the study was conducted may help to contextualize the study. This could be added to line 38.

The manuscript provides background on the mental health consequences of quarantines for young people. I would suggest that, prior to this, studies about the consequences of loneliness and social isolation on the health of young people be shown. Some examples are as follows:

https://doi.org/10.1177/17579139211016077

https://doi.org/10.1007/s10802-010-9442-x

https://doi.org/10.1016/S2215-0366(18)30436-X

The introduction should also give a theoretical context about coping strategies in situations of isolation, since it is one of the variables measured in the survey.

As a final suggestion, at the end of the introduction, after stating the objective of the study, it would be appropriate to state the hypotheses of the study. This would help the reader to understand the relationship between the theoretical framework and the analyses performed.

Materials and method section

The study design has been described in detail, describing the procedure followed to obtain the sample. The study population has been adequately described. Figure 1 is adequate and helps the reader to understand the process in a visual and summarized way.

As a suggestion, it might be appropriate to organize the information in a different way. For example, it might be better to first describe the study sample, providing data on the number of participants, gender distribution, average age.... After this, you could explain how the sample was obtained, the inclusion criteria, how the survey was conducted....

In summary, it might be clearer for the reader to change the order of sections 2.1 and 2.2, i.e., first describe the sample and then describe the study design and procedure.

The description of the survey is adequate, explaining in detail the items used to obtain information on each variable, also explaining the psychometric properties of each instrument. It may be necessary to explain why these items were selected from different scales to measure the same variable.

In reference to the free text answers, it would be appropriate to justify why they have been divided into these groups.

Be careful with the use of bold type in section headings. Following the same pattern as in the previous subsections, 2.3 should be written in bold.

Results section

The results on sociodemographic data are complete and adequately presented. However, perhaps data on the sex or mean age of the sample should appear briefly in the sample section. In the results it could be more extensively explained (as it is in the manuscript) or only in the table.

The rest of the results are adequately presented, both in the text and in the tables.

Discussion section

The discussion correctly summarizes the results obtained and compares them with the theoretical background of this field of research. However, I would make a few recommendations.

It would be appropriate, in order not to be repetitive, not to show statistical data that already appear in the results to summarize the findings of the study.

In order to facilitate reading, it would be appropriate not to present the previous studies in such detail, omitting data such as the description of the sample of these studies, the procedure... It would be better to focus on the results so that the reader does not lose the thread and understands the similarities between these previous studies and the study he has just read.

The authors could mention as a limitation the reliability of some of the items. In some cases the cronbach's alpha is not very high. Although in some cases it is justified, I think it should try to be justified in all of them or else mention it as a limitation.

On the other hand, I would recommend adding information regarding coping strategies for future research. For example, the importance of religious coping for adolescents during the isolation caused by the pandemic has been studied (https://doi.org/10.1007/s10943-021-01410-7). It may be interesting to open lines of research that focus on specific coping strategies.

 

 

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

The authors present a good research paper. 

 

• The relevance of the topic: Good.
• Introduction: Good.
• Methodology: Can be improved.
• Results: Good.
• Discussion: Good.     

 

However, ACCEPT AFTER MINOR REVISION. In general, the paper follows an adequate structure and correct scientific support and can be published considering some limitations. The work is interesting in the field of children, adolescents, and parents during COVID-19. However, there are a series of limitations that should be considered.

 

In the first place, carry out a review of the existing literature related to the subject, being essential to inquire into the MPDI – Adolescents journal itself, since there are papers related to its manuscript that can help to improve it. Therefore, include those references, if any, especially from the last five years. In addition, recommend reading some papers related to the topic of children, adolescents, and parents during COVID-19:

 

Imran, N., Zeshan, M., & Pervaiz, Z. (2020). Mental health considerations for children & adolescents in COVID-19 Pandemic. Pakistan Journal of Medical Sciences, 36(COVID19-S4), S67.

Panda, P. K., Gupta, J., Chowdhury, S. R., Kumar, R., Meena, A. K., Madaan, P., ... & Gulati, S. (2021). Psychological and behavioral impact of lockdown and quarantine measures for COVID-19 pandemic on children, adolescents and caregivers: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Journal of Tropical Pediatrics, 67(1), fmaa122.

Viola, T. W., & Nunes, M. L. (2021). Social and environmental effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on children. Jornal de Pediatria. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jped.2021.08.003

Stavridou, A., Kapsali, E., Panagouli, E., Thirios, A., Polychronis, K., Bacopoulou, F., ... & Tsitsika, A. (2021). Obesity in Children and Adolescents during COVID-19 Pandemic. Children, 8(2), 135. https://doi.org/10.3390/ children8020135

 

Specific comments.

 

Title: Incorporate in the title that the work supposes a case study.

 

Abstract. Incorporate in the summary, a more precise sentence of the results.

 

Introduction. This section presents the problem in a coherent and clear manner with the correct support of the scientific literature. However, it is convenient to update the references, since there are different works related to the subject and no mention is made, and it would even be interesting to mention the different existing works related to children, adolescents, and parents during COVID-19. Also, it could be a future study of review.

 

Methods. Modify the method section: Study design. To write the design section, we recommend that you take some of the following methodologists as references.

 

Ato, M., López-García, J. J., & Benavente, A. (2013). A classification system for research designs in psychology. Anales de Psicología/Annals of Psychology, 29(3), 1038-1059.

Montero, I., & León, O.G. (2007). A guide for naming research studies in psychology. International Journal of Clinical and Health Psychology, 7(3), 847-862.

 

Results. Summary of study data and table are correct.

 

Conclusion.  Differentiate the discussion of the main conclusions of the work. To do this, you must create this section. And modify the limitations of the study and locate them in said section at the end. Also, they must be direct, and highlight the main contributions of the study.

 

References. They should be reviewed and updated according to the publication standards.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx