Factors Contributing to Psychological Ill-Effects and Resilience of Caregivers of Children with Developmental Disabilities During a Nation-wide Lockdown During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Abstract

We evaluated factors affecting psychological ill-effects and resilience of caregivers of children with developmental disabilities during the coronavirus pandemic. Depression, Anxiety, and Stress Scales (DASS-21) and Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale 25-item were administered. Logistic regression was used to identify factors associated with psychological ill-effects and resilience. DASS-21 depression, anxiety and stress scores were high; these were associated with difficulties with infection control measures, autism diagnosis, and need for early intervention services. For caregivers of children with ASD, our DASS-21 scores were significantly higher than non-pandemic scores locally and in other Asian sites. Resilience scores correlated inversely with DASS-21 scores. Targeted support to selected at-risk caregivers and improving resilience can help their coping.

Küresel Covid-19 Pandemisi: Yetersizliği Olan ve Yetersizliği Olmayan Çocukların Ebeveynlerinin Karşılaştırılması

“…We can speculate that the physical isolation can be more challenging for children. As expected by recent evidence (Alhuzimi, 2021;Colizzi et al, 2020;Lim et al, 2021), parents of children with disabilities (M = 18.25) reported a higher level of problem behaviors than parents of children without disabilities (M = 11.93). This finding is coherent with the findings of the adaptation study (Güvenir et al, 2008) where the SDQ form was administered to the parents of children who applied to the psychological clinic (M = 17.40) and parents from the community (M = 15.31).…”

“…This finding was in contrast with the research of Iovino et al (2021) which indicates that parents of children with developmental disabilities were significantly subjected to higher stress and burden when compared to parents of children without disabilities. Similarly, Embregts et al (2021), Grumi et al (2021), Lim et al (2021) revealed a higher level of stress for parents of children with intellectual disabilities, neurodevelopmental disabilities, and autism spectrum disorders, respectively. One assumption for unexpected finding of the present study was related to the time when the study was conducted, after one year of the COVID-19 pandemic.…”

“…A pioneer research conducted in China indicated that clinging, inattention, and irritability were the rigorous psychological signs exhibited by youngster ranging from age 3 to 18; while fear, anxiety, and other emotions were found to be greater in children living in high-risk areas (Jiao, Wang, Liu, Fang, Jiao, Pettoello-Mantovani, & Somekh, 2020). In another study conducted in China, conduct problems were found to be the highest type of problem behaviors among other types of problems experienced by children whereas anxiety symptoms of parents increased the likelihood of the demonstration emotional problems of school-aged children (Liu et al, 2021) Recent COVID-19 research has emphasized the vulnerability of children with special needs and the impact of pandemic on their parents (Alhuzimi, 2021;Colizzi, Sironi, Antonini, Ciceri, Bovo, Zoccante, 2020;Lim et al, 2021). For instance, Alhuzimi (2021) particularly focused on parents who have children with ASD since adaptation of these children into the quarantine or isolation is more challenging as a result of the nature of the disability.…”

“…Substantial proportion of parents of children with ASD reported that they had difficulties in managing free time and structured activities of their children and observed more intense and frequent problem behaviors on their children during the pandemic, implying the necessity of healthcare support and interventions (Colizzi et al, 2020). Lim et al (2021) concluded that stress levels of caregivers of children with ASD were higher than pre-pandemic times suggesting that closures of schools and therapy/intervention services were factors influencing parents' stress negatively. In addition, children with intellectual disabilities are vulnerable due to their limitations to cognitively process the information related to COVID-19 (Courtenay & Perera, 2020).…”

The impact of COVID-19 on individuals with ASD in the US: Parent perspectives on social and support concerns

“…Further, while most schools provided some level of remote or virtual learning opportunities [ 7 ], caregivers of individuals with ASD have generally rated the perceived benefit as low [ 12 , 13 ]. Concerns about regression during the pandemic were raised by many parents of children with ASD [ 27 – 29 ] and appear to be related more to the loss of social relationships and social skills than to concerns about attainment of academic skills [ 26 ].…”