Parents' Stress and Children's Psychological Problems in Families Facing the COVID-19 Outbreak in Italy

Abstract

Background: The COVID-19 outbreak has resulted in governments implementing disease containment measures such as school closures, social distancing, and home quarantine. To date, only a few studies have drawn attention to the psychological impact of lockdown on Italian children's mental health. The present study aimed to investigate the psychological distress (anxiety and mood symptoms) and changes in routine among Italian primary and middle school students during the COVID-19 quarantine. Methods: This qualitative interview study was performed between the 18th of May and 7th of June 2020: it involved a sample of 82 children and adolescents living in Milan (Italy), attending primary and middle school (aged 6 to 14 years), and their parents. Results: Almost 30% of the subjects reported having struggled to adjust to home learning. 36 responders completely changed their dietary habits during the lockdown: they were not eating the same amount of food and were consuming more junk food. Sleep habits were also affected by the lockdown measures: 28% of the sample had di culties sleeping and wished to sleep in their parents' bed. Concerning psychological distress, 64 (78%) children and adolescents had anxiety symptoms; 43.9% of the students reported signi cant mood symptoms. Conclusions: Children are not indifferent to the dramatic impact of the COVID-19 epidemic: our data con rm their di culties in adapting to the quarantine measures. The effects of stress exposure may not manifest later on during the children's development, and, for this reason, it would be interesting to follow up on these participants to improve our understanding of how long these outcomes may last.

COVID-19 Life Events Spill-Over on Family Functioning and Adolescent Adjustment

“…Relying on prior work by Cummings and colleagues (Kouros et al, 2014;Zemp et al, 2017), Liu and Doan (2020) note that COVID-related stressors, such as those related to parents' work or children's online schooling, may "spillover" into family life, affecting marital, parent-child and sibling relationships. Emerging studies indeed show that greater parental stress is related to higher rates of symptomatology during the pandemic for children (Russell et al, 2020;Brown et al, 2020;Romero et al, 2020;Origlés et al, 2020) and that pre-existing child symptomatology predicted greater stress for families during the pandemic (Spinelli et al, 2020). For instance, children whose parents experience greater stress during the pandemic show greater changes in mood and behaviors (Orgilés et al, 2020;Romero et al, 2020) as well as increased stress and parent-child con ict (Russell et al, 2020;Spinelli et al, 2020).…”

“…Emerging studies indeed show that greater parental stress is related to higher rates of symptomatology during the pandemic for children (Russell et al, 2020;Brown et al, 2020;Romero et al, 2020;Origlés et al, 2020) and that pre-existing child symptomatology predicted greater stress for families during the pandemic (Spinelli et al, 2020). For instance, children whose parents experience greater stress during the pandemic show greater changes in mood and behaviors (Orgilés et al, 2020;Romero et al, 2020) as well as increased stress and parent-child con ict (Russell et al, 2020;Spinelli et al, 2020).…”

Analyzing the Impact of Covid-19 on the Mothers of Bangladesh: Hearing the Unheard

“…Similarly, analysis of the 2014 outbreak of Ebola virus in West Africa showed that the indirect effects of the outbreak were more severe than the outbreak itself (Elston et al, 2017). It is very much obvious that women and children would be the most vulnerable section who would be facing similar psychological problems in the present pandemic (Spinelli et al 2020). Almost all the respondents, (98%) excepting few agreed that their level of stress and anxiety have increased since the outbreak of Corona virus (See Figure 8).…”

Interviewing children: the impact of the COVID-19 quarantine on children’s changes in routine and psychological distress. 

“…To date, only a few studies [8][9][10] have drawn attention to the psychological impact of lockdown on Italian children's mental health.…”

“…The ndings of an online survey [9], completed by parents of 2 to 14 year old children, showed that factors such as living in an area more at-risk for contagion or being in closer contact with the virus' effects, do not relevantly affect parents' and children's well-being. Similarly, the quality of the environment, such as the physical characteristics of the living space, is not associated with parents' and children's psychological symptoms.…”