Across the world, measures were taken to contain the spreading of the COVID-19 virus. Many of these measures caused a sudden rupture in people’s daily routines, thereby eliciting considerable uncertainty and potentially also hampering the satisfaction of individuals’ psychological needs for autonomy, relatedness, and competence. Drawing upon Maslow’s Hierarchical Need Theory and Self-Determination Theory, this study examined the unique role of felt insecurity and the psychological needs, as well as their dynamic interplay, in the prediction of mental health. A large and heterogeneous sample of adults ( N = 5118; M age = 43.45 years) was collected during the first ten days of the lockdown period in Flanders, Belgium. A subsample ( N = 835 , M age = 41.39) participated during a second wave one week later. Hierarchical regression analyses indicated that felt insecurity, need satisfaction and need frustration all independently predicted various positive (life satisfaction, sleep quality) and negative indicators depressive symptoms, anxiety) of mental health, with little systematic evidence for interactions between the predictors. The pattern of findings obtained concurrently largely held in the longitudinal analyses. Finally, results showed that associations between felt insecurity and lower concurrent and prospective mental health were partially mediated by need satisfaction and frustration, with especially psychological need frustration predicting changes in mental health over time. Overall, the findings suggest that satisfaction of the psychological needs for autonomy, competence, and relatedness is not just a ‘luxury good’. Satisfaction of these needs is important also in times of insecurity, while need frustration represents a risk factor for maladjustment during such times.

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The lockdown measures that were taken to contain the worldwide outbreak of COVID-19 caused many parents to stay at home with their children. This unusual situation created both risks and opportunities for families. In the current study, we examined the role of parental identity as a resource for parental adaptation during this challenging period, thereby considering both parenthood experiences and parents' general mental health while also taking into account the cumulative risk to which parents were exposed (e.g., single parenthood). Further, to shed light on the mechanisms behind the effects of parental identity, this study addressed the mediating role of parental satisfaction of their basic psychological needs for autonomy, competence, and relatedness. During the lockdown period in Belgium, 492 parents (88% mothers, Mage = 44 years, 63.7% in intact family, 31.2% with a university degree) completed online questionnaires on parental identity, need-based experiences, positive and negative parenthood experiences, and mental health. Several weeks earlier, these participants also rated their mental health and a variety of risks they were exposed to as part of a larger study. Results showed that a clear and self-endorsed parental identity was related to better parental adaptation, with parental need satisfaction playing a mediating role in these associations. Moreover, these associations remained significant after controlling for prior levels of parental mental health and for cumulative risk. Overall, findings suggest that parental identity serves as a source of resilience in an uncertain period such as the COVID-19 pandemic. Practical implications and directions for future research are discussed.

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Objective The COVID-19 pandemic and associated quarantine measures highly impacted parental psychological well-being. Parents of children with chronic diseases might be specifically vulnerable as they already face multiple challenges to provide adequate care for their child. The research questions of the current study were twofold: (a) to examine whether parents of children with a chronic disease experienced more anxiety and depression compared to parents of healthy children and (b) to examine a series of risk factors for worsened well-being (i.e., depression, anxiety, and sleep problems), such as sociodemographic variables, COVID-19-specific variables (i.e., financial worries, living space, and perceived quality of health care), and parental psychological experiences (i.e., parental burn-out and less positive parenting experiences). Methods Parents of children with a chronic disease (i.e., the clinical sample; N = 599 and 507 for Research Questions 1 and 2, respectively) and parents of healthy children (i.e., the reference sample: N = 417) filled out an online survey. Results Findings demonstrated that the parents in the clinical sample reported higher levels of anxiety than parents in the reference sample. Analyses within the clinical sample indicated that COVID-19-specific stressors and parental psychological experiences were associated with higher levels of anxiety, depression, and sleep problems. Mediation analyses furthermore indicated that the association of COVID-19-specific stressors with all outcome measures was mediated by parental burn-out. Conclusions Parents of children with a chronic disease constitute a vulnerable group for worse well-being during the current pandemic. Findings suggest interventions directly targeting parental burn-out are warranted.

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