Day-To-Day Fluctuations in Connectedness with Parents and Peers Predict Emotional Health in Girls During COVID-19

• In Event: Longitudinal Peer and Family Relationships Impact on Adolescent Mood During COVID-19

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in unprecedented disruptions to daily life resulting in increased symptoms of anxiety and depression (Racine et al. 2020), potentially compounding an existing mental health crisis among adolescents, especially girls (Kalb et al., 2019). Understanding how social interactions during the pandemic are linked in real time with emotional health will be critical for informing prevention, intervention, and public policy recommendations to help adolescents cope with prolonged social distancing and to better understand mechanisms in the development of psychopathology. Social connectedness with peers may play a key role in emotional health during this time, including digital forms of social interaction, given the salience of peer relationships in adolescence. Adolescents are also spending markedly more time with family members, which could influence emotional health via increased connectedness or conflict.
We conducted a daily diary study in 93 adolescent girls (ages 12-17; M=15.02; 68% Caucasian), with approximately 2/3 at high risk for anxiety and depression based on earlier shy/fearful temperament. Participants completed an online daily diary (88% compliance) during a 10-day period in April/May in which they were under state-issued stay-at-home orders to investigate how day-to-day fluctuations in social interactions, including digital interactions, contribute to same-day fluctuations in emotional health. Diaries included adolescent report of daily positive (PA) and negative affect (NA), social media (SM) and digital technology use, time spent with family, connectedness with family and peers, peer exclusion/rejection, family conflict, and daily depressive and anxious symptoms. Multilevel fixed effects models with Bayesian estimation with 4 DVs (PA, NA, anxiety, depression) were estimated separately for peer and family factors as within- and between-level predictors.
As shown in Table 1, adolescent girls reported more PA on days when they felt more connected with family and peers. In contrast, they reported more NA, depression, and/or anxiety on days when they felt less connected with peers and parents, or experienced peer exclusion or family conflict. Amount of time spent with family, texting, or video-chatting did not predict same-day emotional health, suggesting that quality was more important than quantity or type of interaction. There was a nonlinear effect showing that girls had lower NA on days when they spent more or less time than usual on SM (Fig. 1). Between-person analyses similarly indicated that girls who felt more connected and experienced less conflict/rejection from both family and peers had better emotional health across the 10 days compared to other girls. Additionally, girls who spent more time on videochats had lower mean PA.
Findings indicate that social connectedness and conflict are key factors in adolescent emotional health during the pandemic, and that relationships with both peers and parents remain critical during this challenging time. Findings also suggest that there is a complex relationship between SM use and mood, but increasing one’s level of SM use during the pandemic appears to attenuate negative affect, potentially by enhancing connectedness. Low levels of negative affect on days with lower than usual SM use might indicate that youth were engaged in alternative enjoyable activities on those days.

Authors

• Jennifer S. Silk, University of Pittsburgh
  Presenting Author

• Lori Scott, University of Pittsburgh Medical Center
  Non-Presenting Author

• Stefanie Sequeira, University of Pittsburgh
  Non-Presenting Author

• Celine Lu, University of Pittsburgh
  Non-Presenting Author

• Emily Anne Hutchinson, University of Pittsburgh
  Non-Presenting Author

• Cecile D Ladouceur, University of Pittsburgh
  Non-Presenting Author