Stuck Outside and Inside: An Exploratory Study on the Effects of the COVID-19 Outbreak on Italian Parents and Children’s Internalizing Symptoms

Abstract

The Covid-19 outbreak and the subsequent lockdown have profoundly impacted families' daily life, challenging their psychological resilience. Our study aimed to investigate the immediate psychological consequences of the pandemic on Italian parents and children focusing on internalizing and post-traumatic symptoms. We also wanted to explore the impact of possible risk and resilience factors, e.g., lifestyle and behaviors, emotional and cognitive beliefs, on parents and children's reaction to the emergency distress. An online survey was administered during the country's nationwide lockdown to 721 Italian parents of at least one child aged between 6 and 18 years. The respondent completed the survey for himself/herself and his/her child. The survey included socio-demographic items and validated questionnaires on parents' post-traumatic stress symptoms, depression and anxiety levels, and on children's internalizing problems. Parents were asked to fill the questionnaires twice: once referring to the current emergency condition and once recalling how they and their child felt a few months before Covid-19 outbreak. Multiple regression analyses showed that specific demographic characteristics (i.e., sex and age) and psychological factors of children and parents, such as fear of contagion and the opportunity to think about possible secondary positive effects of the pandemic, had a predictive value on the presence of internalizing symptoms of both parents and children. Moreover, parents' behaviors during the lockdown period (i.e., employment status and sport practiced) were significantly related to their own internalizing symptoms; these symptoms, in turn, had a strong and positive predictive value on children's internalizing problems. Besides, analyses of variance showed that internalizing symptoms of parents and children were significantly higher during the Covid-19 pandemic than before it started. In addition to showing a direct effect of the pandemic on the psychological health of parents and

Mothers Daily Perceived Stress Influences their Children’s Mental Health During SARS-CoV-2-pandemic

“…Accordingly, the current parental stress should urgently be viewed as a risk factor in relation to the positive coping with the stress of a child caused by the pandemic [32].Our results go in line with the findings of Davico et al [24], Patrick et al [21] as well as Crescentini et al [33] who detected a positive relationship between the psychological stress of parents and that of their children [21,24,33].…”

Parental Mental Health and Hostility Are Associated With Longitudinal Increases in Child Internalizing and Externalizing Problems During COVID-19

“…Research indicates that children and adolescents are experiencing high rates of mental health difficulties during the pandemic (Bignardi et al, 2020 ; Bikmazer et al, 2020 ; Crescentini et al, 2020 ; Cusinato et al, 2020 ; Francisco et al, 2020 ; Xie et al, 2020 ), including internalizing problems, such as depression and anxiety (Bignardi et al, 2020 ), and externalizing problems, such as anger, irritability, and argumentative behavior (Orgilés et al, 2020 ). Much of this research was conducted during the initial phase of the pandemic, which often included nation-wide lockdowns (e.g., China, Italy).…”

Mothers’ daily perceived stress influences their children’s mental health during SARS-CoV-2-pandemic—an online survey

“…Therefore it is of utmost importance that the current parental stress is viewed as a risk factor in relation to positive coping skills in regard to children's stress caused by the pandemic [40]. [25] and Crescentini et al [41] who detected a positive relationship between the experienced psychological stress of parents and that of their children [25,28,41]. However in contrast to the formerly mentioned studies we contribute to literature by estimating models based on longitudinal data which captures the maternal stress level examined from childbirth on.…”