Survey reveals that eight out of ten parents of children under 6 years old have anxiety, depression or stress

One of the issues that are not very touched on in the country is mental health, but it is true that thousands of parents feel stressed every day about work and at the same time taking care of their children, which is not an easy task at all. This is evidenced by a nationwide survey of 59,000 parents of children aged 6 months to 6 years that revealed that 86.1% of them, that is, 8 out of 10, have anxiety, depression or stress.

This is the Seventh Round of the Continuous Assessment of the Impact of COVID-19 (ECIC-19), carried out by the Baltazar y Nicolás Foundation, in partnership with Copera Infancia and the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru ( PUCP).

“Because of the pandemic, the emotional health of children and parents was affected; in the case of children, isolation did not allow them to develop their social skills and manage their emotions, and on the parents' side, they had to learn to raise and care for their children during confinement,” he says. Rommy Ríos, Manager of the ByN Foundation and Vice President of Copera Childhood.

Other data revealed by the research show that 32.4% of caregivers (fathers and mothers) found it more difficult to care for their children since the beginning of the pandemic, while 30% felt that it was difficult to manage tantrums.

Similarly, the survey indicates that Apurimac, Puno and Ayacucho are the regions with the highest rates of anxiety, depression or stress, with 90.4%, 89.1% and 88.9% respectively.

Likewise, 44.6% of caregivers are very concerned about the learning or development of their child, while 46.7% are concerned about their behavior.

These figures show that it is necessary to prioritize public health actions around the mental health of girls, boys and their families, points out the specialist.

It also points out the need to strengthen intersectoral efforts for comprehensive care for families, being a joint work between health, education, development and social inclusion, among others, calls to articulate initiatives that contribute to providing support to families to promote positive ties.

PEDRO CASTILLO AND MENTAL HEALTH

The President of the Republic, Pedro Castillo, has been characterized by being in a conservative party that does not have or did not campaign among its main proposals mental health issues, which he did highlight is the issue of physical health, especially in children. These are some proposals that the president had in his campaign and in his speech of 28 July.

1. Pedro Castillo proposed the Psychologist by School program: fundamental for the mental health of school children and adolescents in a country marked by social and economic inequalities. The psychologist must become a new type of teacher commissioned to avoid suicide, dropout and bullying.

This proposal has not yet been implemented in 8 months of government, nor have bills or motions on this been proposed in the plenary of Congress.

On the other hand, in his speech on July 28, 2021, he mentioned that physical and mental health will be the government's first priority. “We will create a universal, unified, free, decentralized and participatory health system,” he said.

2. He said that to this end, they will improve hospital care and promote “the formation of 15,000 comprehensive community care teams that will have a territorial criterion so that no Peruvian family is left without medical coverage.”

3. “At the end of my term, I will deliver specialized hospitals by region, among which we will prioritize maternal and child hospitals, neoplastic hospitals, surgical clinical hospital, tropical medicine and oral health hospital,” he added.

This proposal is still pending. It should be noted that what progress has been made in vaccination since the beginning of his government, but unfortunately since Hernando Cevallos left the wallet, it has fallen by 39% in children.

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