The novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) has been declared by the World Health Organisation as an international public health emergency. Owing to its high infectivity, countries all over the world implemented nationwide lockdowns with the hope of flattening the epidemic curve. Around the world, this has led to the closure of schools in over 150 countries affecting the education of nearly 1 billion children (Sahu, 2020). India faced total lockdown from 24th March 2020 to May 2020 and even though a phased reopening of public services has since then been attempted, most educational institutions including schools and colleges remain closed without a clear view regarding their reopening. This has created an unprecedented crisis in the education sector for students as well as educators regarding continuation of educational services, conducting assessments and catering to the needs of special education and vocational rehabilitation. This paper discusses the various psychosocial issues that have emerged leading to academic stress amongst children and adolescent students and its potential to lead to short and long-term psychological morbidity.
Problematic Internet use (PIU) among students has become a significant mental health concern. Our goals were to review the existing studies on problematic Internet from Southeast Asian Region and examine: the prevalence for PIU among students; explore for sociodemographic and clinical correlates; and assess the physical, mental, and psychosocial impact of PIU in this population. All studies conducted among population of the Southeast Asia, involving students (school students to postgraduate students) of any age which explored etiological factors and/or the prevalence or any other factor associated with PIU/Internet addiction were considered eligible for the present review. The electronic databases of PubMed and Google Scholar were systematically searched for the relevant published studies up to and including October 2016. Our search strategy yielded 549 articles, 295 of which were eligible for screening based on their publication in English language in a peer-reviewed journal. Of these, a total of 38 studies met the inclusion criteria and were included in the review. The prevalence of severe PIU/Internet addiction ranged from 0 to 47.4%, whereas the prevalence of Internet overuse/possible Internet addiction ranged from 7.4% to 46.4% among students from Southeast Asia. Physical impairments in the form of insomnia (26.8%), daytime sleepiness (20%), and eye strain (19%) were also reported among problem users. There is a need to conduct further research in this area to explore the protective and risk factors associated with it and also longitudinally assess the trajectories of the outcome.
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