Stress, online courses and parenting during COVID19 pandemic

Abstract

In March 2020, the World Health Organisation declares a pandemic of infection with the novel coronavirus (nCoV) COVID-19 and on 23rd of April the first official report on its evolution and effects emerges. A state of medical emergency and quarantine is imposed in all affected countries. This study proposed a research of what parenting entails and which are the implications of parenting in a crisis context for young people, particularly how perceived parental support and perceived support work on the relationship between stress on one hand, and depression and anxiety on the other hand, especially for those who study online due to context. The proposed sample consists of 104 students aged 18 to 25. Participants self-reported on their attitude towards online school, perceived stress levels, perceived parental and maternal support and anxiety and depression levels. The procedure consists of completing online questionnaires. The statistical procedure used is the mediation analysis. The results show that there is a partial mediation effect of perceived parental support and perceived parental support in the relationship between stress and anxiety, and the attitude towards the online academic races leave to an increase in perceived stress levels. These results could be used for programs to prevent the negative effects associated with online school and the effects of long-term social isolation, as well as for psychological education and parenting programs in emergency situation.