Objective: COVID-19 is an unprecedented global crisis. Research is critically needed to identify the acute and long-term impacts of the pandemic to children’s mental health including psychosocial factors that predict resilience, recovery, and persistent long-term distress. The present study collected data in June-July 2020 to enumerate the acute impact of the pandemic on children’s mental health, including the magnitude and nature of psychiatric and psychological distress in children, and to evaluate social support as a putative psychosocial correlate of children’s distress.Method: 190 families of children aged 8 to 13 from the Windsor-Essex region of Southwestern Ontario reported on the impact of the pandemic on children’s well-being (e.g., worry, happiness); irritability; social support; and symptoms of anxiety, depressive, and posttraumatic stress disorder at baseline assessment of an ongoing longitudinal study of the COVID-19 pandemic.Results: Children and parents reported worsened well-being and psychological distress during the pandemic compared to retrospective report of pre-pandemic well-being. Children and parents also reported higher depressive and anxiety symptoms, but fewer PTSD symptoms, compared to epidemiological samples that used the same measures prior to the pandemic. Finally, child-perceived social support from family and friends was associated with lower symptom severity.Conclusions: Study findings indicate broad psychological impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and are consistent with prior research that indicates a protective role of social support to mitigate the negative psychological impact of the pandemic.
Multiple reviews identify the broad, pervasive initial impact of the global COVID-19 pandemic on the mental health of children, who may be particularly vulnerable to long-term psychiatric sequelae of the ongoing pandemic. However, limited longitudinal research examines persistence of, or change in, children’s distress or psychiatric symptomatology. From June 2020 through December 2021, we enrolled two cohorts of families of children aged 8–13 from Southwestern Ontario into a staggered baseline, longitudinal design that leveraged multi-informant report ( N = 317 families). In each family, one child and one parent/guardian completed a baseline assessment, 6 monthly follow-up assessments, and one final follow-up assessment 9 months post-baseline. At each assessment, the child and parent/guardian completed the CoRonavIruS health Impact Survey and measures of child anxiety, depressive, irritability, and posttraumatic stress syndromes. Children’s mental health, indexed by the severity of multiple syndromes, fluctuated over the study period. Elevated local monthly COVID-19 prevalence, hospitalization, and death rates were associated with monthly elevations in children’s reported worry about contracting COVID-19 and stress related to stay-at-home orders. In turn, both elevated monthly worry about contracting COVID-19 and stress related to stay-at-home orders were associated with monthly elevations in child- and parent-/guardian-report of children’s emotional distress and psychiatric syndromes. This study illustrates the importance of, and informs the potential design of, longitudinal research to track the mental health of children, who may be particularly vulnerable to broad psychosocial sequelae of health crises such as the COVID-19 pandemic. Supplementary Information The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s00787-022-02121-4.
Background. Multiple reviews identify the broad, pervasive initial impact of the global COVID-19 pandemic on the mental health of children, who may be particularly vulnerable to long-term psychiatric sequelae of the ongoing pandemic. However, limited longitudinal research examines persistence of, or change in, children’s distress or psychiatric symptomatology.Methods. From June 2020 through December 2021, we enrolled two cohorts of families of children aged 8 to 13 from Southwestern Ontario into a staggered baseline, longitudinal design that leveraged multi-informant report (N=317 families). In each family, one child and one parent or guardian completed a baseline assessment, 6 monthly follow-up assessments, and one final follow-up assessment 9 months post-baseline. At each assessment, the child and parent or guardian completed the CoRonavIruS health Impact Survey and measures of child anxiety, depressive, irritability, and posttraumatic stress syndromes.Results. Results indicate a broad impact of the pandemic on children’s mental health, which fluctuated over the study period. Elevated local monthly COVID-19 prevalence, hospitalization, and death rates were associated with monthly elevations in children’s reported worry about contracting COVID-19 and stress related to non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPI). In turn, both elevated monthly worry about contracting COVID-19 and NPI-related stress were associated with monthly elevations in child- and parent- or guardian-report of children’s psychological distress and psychiatric syndromes.Conclusions. This study illustrates the importance of, and informs the potential design of, longitudinal research to track the broad, sustained impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the mental health of children, who may be particularly vulnerable during the ongoing global crisis.
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