Coping during COVID-19 Mediates Associations between Parental Distress and Perceived Child Anxiety in Latinx Families

• In Event: Poster Session 03
  In Poster Session: PS 03 Topic - Solicited Content: COVID-19 Related

Abstract

Introduction: Parents all over the world are facing unprecedented financial and caregiving stressors during the COVID-19 pandemic, which can increase emotional reactivity and reliance on maladaptive coping strategies that are known to exacerbate risk for internalizing symptoms (Nolen-Hoeksema et al., 2008). Mounting evidence also indicates stark racial/ethnic disparities in the impact of COVD-19 in the United States, with Black and Latinx families harmed at disproportionately higher rates than their white neighbors. For Latinx families, these compounding stressors may interfere with many protective forms of responding, such as use of problem-focused skills-use coping strategies (Compas et al., 2017), which may subsequently impact children’s mental health. However, the specific pathways are unclear. The present short-term longitudinal study tested whether parental coping acts as a mediator between parental COVID-19-related distress and anxiety symptoms in preadolescent Latina girls. We also examined which specific sources of distress were most associated with parents’ maladaptive coping strategies.

Methods: Fifty-six parent-daughter dyads, recruited from a larger longitudinal sample of Latina females on a range of anxiety symptoms, participated in this study. Data collection spanned four time points, each spread approximately two weeks apart. At time one, parents reported on their degree of pandemic-related distress. At times two and three, parents reported on their coping strategies via the Dialectical Behavior Therapy Ways of Coping Checklist (Niacsiu et al., 2010). These reports were averaged across the two time points to create composite scores that assessed three dimensions of coping: skills use, general dysfunctional, and blaming others. At time four, parents and daughters (MAge=10.47, ±1.37) reported on the severity of child anxiety symptoms via the Screen for Child Anxiety Related Disorders (Birmaher et al., 1999).

Results: Parents’ pandemic-related distress at time one was associated with parent-reported daughter anxiety at time four (r=.46, p<.01). Further, parents’ general dysfunctional coping across times two and three mediated the link between pandemic-related distress and parent-rated child anxiety, b=3.46, 95% BC CI [.33, 8.13], after controlling for child age. Of note, these effects were not observed for children’s self-reported anxiety symptoms. Secondary analyses revealed that among the many pandemic-related stressors, distress in response to food and job insecurity emerged as significant predictors of dysfunctional coping across times two and three, after controlling for child age (R2=0.18, p<.01; R2=0.08, p<.05, respectively).

Conclusions: Parental dysfunctional coping in response to pandemic-related distress may be an important catalyst of parent-rated child anxiety. Our findings suggest that parents who struggle to effectively cope with the myriad stressors of COVID-19 are also more likely to perceive internalizing problems in their children, irrespective of children’s own reports. We view these informant discrepancies as yielding meaningful information about possible developmental pathways leading to psychopathology. We also show that parental coping strategies in response to financial distress, in particular, may be an important prevention target in reducing the burden of mental health in Latinx families and other disproportionately affected communities. Continued research is needed to elucidate how coping with psychological distress contributes to parental perceptions of maladjustment relative to children’s subjective experiences during the pandemic.

Authors

• Jordan Mullins, University of California - Riverside
  Presenting Author

• Elayne Zhou, University of California, Riverside
  Non-Presenting Author

• Sandra Alexa Rosales, University of California - Riverside
  Non-Presenting Author

• Kalina J Michalska, University of California - Riverside
  Non-Presenting Author