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Impact of the COVID‐19 Pandemic on Parent, Child, and Family Functioning
Author(s) -
Feinberg Mark E.,
Mogle Jacqueline,
Lee JinKyung,
Tornello Samantha L.,
Hostetler Michelle L.,
Cifelli Joseph A.,
Bai Sunhye,
Hotez Emily
Publication year - 2022
Publication title -
family process
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.011
H-Index - 74
eISSN - 1545-5300
pISSN - 0014-7370
DOI - 10.1111/famp.12649
Subject(s) - mental health , psychological intervention , anxiety , psychology , moderation , coparenting , pandemic , covid-19 , medicine , psychiatry , clinical psychology , developmental psychology , social psychology , disease , pathology , infectious disease (medical specialty)
To quantify the impact of the COVID‐19 pandemic and public health interventions on parent and child mental health and family relationships, we examined change in individual and family functioning in a sample of parents enrolled in a prevention trial; we examined change before the pandemic (2017–2019) when children were an average of 7 years old to the first months after the imposition of widespread public health interventions in the United States (2020) with paired t tests and HLM models. We examined moderation by parent gender, education, family income, and coparenting conflict. We found large deteriorations from before the pandemic to the first months of the pandemic in child internalizing and externalizing problems and parent depression, and a moderate decline in coparenting quality. Smaller changes were found for parent anxiety and parenting quality. Mothers and families with lower levels of income were at particular risk for deterioration in well‐being. Results indicate a need for widespread family support and intervention to prevent potential family “scarring,” that is, prolonged, intertwined individual mental health and family relationship problems.