A Unique Role for Social Connection in the COVID-19 Pandemic; A Qualitative Analysis of Parenting Forums

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has disproportionately impacted parents, though few studies have explored stressors from parents’ perspectives. This study aimed to understand parental stressors and how parents seek information about mental health, parenting stress, and social support online during the COVID-19 pandemic. A total of 337 threads focusing on parenting questions and discussions on two popular online forums, Baby Centre Canada and Canadian Parents What to Expect, were analyzed using a qualitative framework analytic approach. The emergent framework identified four main themes of parental stressors (household stressors, child health, parental health, and COVID-19), each except COVID-19 with associated subthemes. Emerging themes and parents’ use of forums illustrates a need for online resources that offer social connection and information regarding co-parenting relationships, adjusting to parenthood, child development, and parental self-care. Future research should evaluate parents’ use of other virtual modalities for seeking health information, parenting advice, or social connection online.

Building Emotional Awareness and Mental Health (BEAM): A Pilot Randomized Controlled Trial of an App-Based Program for Mothers of Toddlers

“…These requests aligned with our knowledge synthesis work highlighting the importance of therapist contact (vs. only didactic materials) to symptom improvement in digital programs (30). Similarly, our previous qualitative research on parenting forums (1,000 posts) during the pandemic highlighted requests for strategies to support family mental health and to feel less isolated (31).…”

Participant Experiences of the Building Emotional Awareness and Mental Health App-Based Intervention: A Qualitative Program Evaluation

“…The forum was also noted to be beneficial, as it provided an opportunity to connect with other mothers in the program, share stories, talk about program content, and seek advice. Other research on parenting forums among mothers has found similar conversation topics (Pierce et al, 2022) with similar beneficial impacts. Online forums are shown to be an effective source of support for mothers across various populations (Baum, 2004;Reinke & Solheim, 2015;Wagg et al, 2019) providing a valuable and empowering community, and an informal knowledge base for the challenges of parenting (Brady & Guerin, 2010;Doty & Dworkin, 2014).…”