Corona Children Studies "Co-Ki": First Results of a Germany-Wide Registry on Mouth and Nose Covering (Mask) in Children

doi:10.21203/rs.3.rs-124394/v4

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Research Article

Corona Children Studies "Co-Ki": First Results of a Germany-Wide Registry on Mouth and Nose Covering (Mask) in Children

https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-124394/v4

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published 22 Feb, 2021

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This study is based on a survey regarding the adverse effects of mask wearing in children. Due to multiple limitations, this study cannot demonstrate a causal relationship between mask wearing and the reported adverse effects in children. Most of the respondents were parents, and the survey was distributed preferentially in social media forums that, according to the authors, “criticize the government’s corona protection measures in principle”. The limitations of the study include sampling bias, reporting bias, and confounding bias as well as lack of a control group. The use of masks, together with other precautionary measures, significantly reduces the spread of COVID-19 and is considered safe for children over the age of two years old.

A detailed assessment of the study and its conclusions was performed by subject matter experts at Health Feedback and can be found here.

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Background: Narratives about complaints in children and adolescents caused by wearing a mask are accumulating. There is, to date, no registry for side effects of masks.

Methods: In the context of the www.co-ki.de multi-study-complex an online registry has been set up where parents, doctors, pedagogues and others can enter their observations. On 20.10.2020, 363 doctors were asked to make entries and to make parents and teachers aware of the registry.

Results: By 26.10.2020 the registry had been used by 20,353 people. In this publication we report the results from the parents, who entered data on a total of 25,930 children. The average reported wearing time of masks was 270 minutes per day. Impairments caused by wearing the mask were reported by 68% of the parents. These included irritability (60%), headache (53%), difficulty concentrating (50%), less happiness (49%), reluctance to go to school/kindergarten (44%), malaise (42%) impaired learning (38%) and drowsiness or fatigue (37%).

Discussion: This world's first registry for recording the effects of wearing masks in children is dedicated to a new research question. Bias with respect to preferential documentation of children who are particularly severely affected or who are fundamentally critical of protective measures cannot be dismissed. The frequency of the registry’s use and the spectrum of symptoms registered indicate the importance of the topic and call for representative surveys, randomized controlled trials with various masks and a renewed risk-benefit assessment for the vulnerable group of children.

General Practice

Mouth and nose protection

community masks

mask obligation

pediatrics

COVID-19