Background
The current situation caused by the SARS-CoV-2-pandemic is associated with serious losses for everyone and has been affecting social life, politics, the economy and the media worldwide. Preventive isolation and social distancing strategies have confronted families with a large number of different challenges. The current epidemic and quarantine restrictions have a verifiable influence on the emotional and social development of children and adolescents. During this ongoing situation children of parents, who already were mentally stressed, seem particularly at risk.
Objective
We aimed to assess the role of maternal daily perceived stress on children’s mental health during the SARS-CoV-2-pandemic.
Methods
An online “SARS-CoV-2-pandemic survey” was developed to assess children’s mental health since the beginning of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic. To describe maternal perceived everyday stress, data from a longitudinal survey was utilized. Our survey includes elements and versions of the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire, the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire and the Perceived Stress Scale. We furthermore collected socio-demographic data. Due to our limited dependent variables we applied Tobit models for estimation.
Results
We found a positive and significant effect of the maternal perceived everyday stress on children’s emotional problems during the pandemic. Furthermore, results provide empirical evidence for an increase of the children's hyperactivity level dependent on the mother’s perceived stress before the SARS-COV-2 crisis. We could not find significant effects for the relationship between mother’s perceived everyday stress and the children's behavioral problems.
Conclusions
Analyses illustrate the effects on children's mental distress during everyday life in the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic. Future research needs to identify influencing factors with regard to political, economic and social restrictions, in order to prevent children’s mental health problems.
Numerous studies have addressed the indirect consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic for children such as social isolation or increases in reported child maltreatment. Research on the economic and sociopolitical consequences is scarce as they can only be evaluated with a time lag. To improve our understanding of future, long-term developments in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, we gathered findings from the still unexploited empirical literature on the aftermath of earlier pandemics, epidemics, and other infectious disease outbreaks. On top of this, we scrutinized research on past economic crises to interpret the link between changes in the economy and the health of children. Many of the side effects of battling the spread of the current pandemic, such as school closures, the stigma of infection, or conflicts about vaccines, are not novel and have already been documented in connection with previous infectious disease outbreaks. Results highlight that changes in the financial situation of families and socio-political challenges affect the situation and daily routine of children and youth in the long term. In consequence, the already pronounced socioeconomic inequalities will likely further increase. On top of this, due to reduced revenues, child protective services are likely to face challenges in the availability of human and financial resources.
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