Short-term and long-term effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on child psychological well-being: a four-wave longitudinal study

AbstractAs the COVID-19 pandemic further unfolds, it becomes a key theoretical and practical question to identify trajectories of child psychological well-being and to explore risk and resilience factors for developmental adjustment. The current study addressed this research gap by means of an ecological design: A (lockdown) –B (relaxation)–B (relaxation)–A (lockdown). We collected parental reports via online questionnaires over four measurement occasions during the COVID-19 pandemic in Germany (non-probabilistic sample): from the first lockdown (T1—spring 2020,N = 1769) to the following period of relaxation (T2—summer 2020,n = 873; T3—fall 2020,n = 729) on to the second lockdown (T4—winter 2020/21,n = 748). Key measures at T1–T4 were child emotional and behavioral problems as well as hyperactivity, child emotional and family-related well-being, parental strain, and parent–child relationship quality. We found evidence for quadratic growth models. While child problem behaviors (b = 0.32,p <  0.001) and emotional well-being (b = − 0.33,p <  0.001) improved after the first lockdown during subsequent periods of relaxation before worsening again in the second lockdown, child family-related well-being steadily decreased over all four measurement points (T1–T2:p <  0.001; T2–T3:p = 0.045; T3–T4:p = 0.030). Importantly, parental stress emerged as a strong risk factor (ps  <  0.11) and the parent–...
Source: European Child and Adolescent Psychiatry - Category: Psychiatry Source Type: research