Background:

Research on the impact of mental health from the pediatric population in Colombia is scarce, even though significant mental health impacts have been reported in this population with COVID-19. The point of this study was to describe and compare changes in mental health in the pediatric population diagnosed with COVID-19 and without this diagnosis, in Caldas, Colombia.

Methods:

The study was done in children who were diagnosed with Covid-19 from March 2020 to March 2021. For this, the Reporting Questionnaire for Children (RQC) was applied through phone interviews, of which 89 were included in the investigation.

Results:

In total, it was found that the most frequent symptom was being scared or nervous for no reason 35% followed by language problems 30% and sleep problems 29%

Discussion:

Although most studies mention that pediatric mental health was affected during the pandemic, it is rarely related to the direct implications of the infection. The present study indicates that children diagnosed with COVID-19 presented greater difficulties in their mental health.

Conclusions:

The Covid-19 pandemic, as well as the measures to prevent its spread and the systemic disease caused by the virus, negatively affected the mental health of the pediatric population studied.

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