A comparison of the levels of depression, anxiety and somatic symptoms of 9-12 years old children of parents with and without infected by the Covid-19 output

In this thesis, aimed to compare depression, anxiety and somatic symptom scores of children aged 9-12 years of parents who were infected and uninfected due to the Covid-19 pandemic. The research sample consist of 280 children aged 9-12 years. The study included 134 children whose parents were diagnosed and 146 children whose parents were undiagnosed. Due to the pandemic, data were collected online. The data collection instruments used were the Demographic Data Form, The State-Trait Anxiety Inventory for Children, The Children's Depression Inventory and The Children's Somatisation Inventory. The research data were analyzed with the programme IBM SPPS 25.0. As a result of the analyzes, a statistically significant difference was found between the depression (t(278)=2.184; p<0.05), state anxiety (t(278)=2.176; p<0.05) and somatization (t(278)=2.145; p<0.05) scores of children whose parents had received Covid-19 diagnosis and those whose parents had not. No statistically significant difference was found for the mean score of trait anxiety (t(278)=0.252; p>0,05). In reviewing the literature, the body of work in this area is currently so small that it can be said to be nonexistent. For this reason, this study is considered to provide current information to the literature to determine the impact, risk factors, and treatment steps of Covid-19 pandemic on children.