A Within-person Approach to the Psychological Impact of COVID-19 on Latina Mothers and their Children

• In Event: Trajectories of Family Mental Health During COVID-19: A Focus on Socioeconomic Contexts

Abstract

Although emerging evidence suggests that the COVID-19 pandemic impacts parent’s economic and psychological well-being, with potential spillover to children (Brown et al., 2020; Chung et al., 2020a,b), little is known regarding how it has affected Latino families. Compared to non-Latino White families, Latino families represent a larger proportion of the low-wage essential workforce and are at higher risk of morbidity and mortality due to COVID-19 (Hooper et al., 2020). Therefore, it is likely that stress due to the viral outbreak and the resulting recession may contribute to heightened maternal stress and children’s behavioral problems. Additionally, because of the ever-changing nature of COVID-19 transmission, states’ responses, and personal beliefs, pandemic-related stressors may fluctuate within families across time, requiring the use of within-person approaches. We hypothesized that, at the between-person level (1a), pandemic-specific stress and financial cutbacks would predict higher general stress for mothers, and that (1b) mothers’ stress would predict increased problems in children. Further, at the within-person level (2a), when mothers report greater than usual levels of pandemic-specific stress and financial cutbacks, their general life stress would also be greater than usual, and that (2b) mother’s higher than usual stress would predict higher than usual problems in children.

Methods. The current sample includes 68 Latina mothers (Mage=24.64 years, SD=3.30, 95.5% Latina) and their children (Mage=3.01 years, SD=1.45, 47.1% female) surveyed on five occasions between 2-131 days after California’s shelter in place order. 81.5% reported having a romantic partner and an annual household income of $30,001-$35,000 on average. 81.7% of families had an employed adult that was an essential worker and, throughout the assessment period, 29% of working families experienced layoffs. At each occasion, mothers reported how stressed they were because of the COVID-19 outbreak (pandemic-specific stress), the number of economic cutbacks they have taken in response to the pandemic, general life stress via the Perceived Stress Scale, and children’s externalizing and internalizing symptoms (Child Trends, 2011).

Results. At the between-person level (1a), mothers who reported more pandemic specific stress and made a higher number of economic cutbacks experienced more general life stress (table 1). Likewise (1b), maternal general stress was also related to higher externalizing and internalizing problems in children. Additionally, at the within-person level (2a), fluctuations in pandemic-specific stress, but not in cutbacks, predicted higher maternal general stress, over and above overall levels and days since lockdown. That is, when mothers reported higher levels of pandemic-specific stress relative to their own averages, their general life stress was also greater than usual relative to their own averages. The within-person association with EP was trending.

Discussion. In accordance with spillover models, mother’s heightened stress might alter the provision of sensitive and co-regulatory care for young children. Interestingly, over and above the harmful consequences of economic hardship, fluctuations in pandemic-stress concurrently impact mother’s psychological well-being possibly due to the novel and unpredictable nature of the pandemic, in addition to the disproportionate burden faced by Latino families.

Authors

• Elisa Ugarte, University of California - Davis
  Presenting Author

• Chase James Boyer, University of California - Davis
  Non-Presenting Author

• Andrea Cecilia Buhler-Wassmann, New York University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Siwei Liu, University of California, Davis
  Non-Presenting Author

• Leah Corinne Hibel, University of California - Davis
  Non-Presenting Author