Behavior problems in preschool children during the COVID-19 home confinement: Trajectories, predictors and sex differences

• In Event: Developmental Psychopathology Perspectives on Externalizing Behavior Problems Among Young Children

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has significantly affected the well-being of families across the world. Guided by a systemic model of family functioning during the COVID-19 pandemic (Prime et al., 2020), the current study aimed to examine how social disruptions (i.e., COVID-related occupational changes), caregiver well-being (i.e., COVID-related anxiety), family organization (i.e., household chaos) and family characteristics (i.e., parental education, SES, child age and sex) are related to trajectories of children’s behavior problems through the home confinement period. As previous research has shown sex differences in predictors and levels of child behavior problems (e.g., Caughy et al, 2016), we also examined child sex as a moderator of these links.

Data were collected at three time points, in which mothers of children between the ages two to five years were asked to complete questionnaires via an Israeli online research platform. Time 1 was collected a week after home confinement regulations were implemented in Israel. Mothers were also asked to report about the two months before the COVID-19 outbreak (Time 0). Time 2 was collected a week after Time 1, during home confinement, and Time 3 was collected a week after the confinement regulations were amended, and childcare systems reopened. At all time points, mothers reported about their children’s behavior problems (SDQ; Goodman, 1997), including conduct problems (CP) and emotional problems (EP). They also reported about their COVID-related anxiety using a questionnaire that taps several symptoms of anxiety in the context of the COVID-19 outbreak; COVID-related occupational changes (i.e., whether each parent is currently working at home or not, and whether they have experienced negative occupational changes since the beginning of the COVID-19 outbreak, such as job lose or unpaid leave); Household chaos (CHAOS; Matheny et al. 1995); and Family characteristics (i.e., parental education, SES, child age and sex).

Unconditional growth curve analyses were conducted to examine patterns of change for EP and CP through the four time points (Figure 1). For EP, both linear and quadradic slopes were significant. The variances of both slopes were non-significant. CP showed a similar pattern of change, with significant variance of both the linear and quadratic slopes. Thus, we next examined predictors of change only for CP. As shown in Table 1, household chaos positively predicted the linear slope, and COVID-related anxiety predicted both the linear and the quadratic slopes. Finally, multi-group analysis was conducted to examine sex differences in predictors of CP. For boys, household chaos predicted both the linear (β=.35, p=.009) and the quadratic (β=-.31, p=.03) slopes. For girls, COVID-related anxiety predicted the linear slope (β=.32, p=.01).

Children’s conduct and emotional problems showed similar patterns of change, with increases at the beginning of the home confinement period, and decreases to pre-COVID-19 levels following the reopening of childcare systems, with different predictors of change in CP for boys and girls. Our findings highlight the important roles of caregiver well-being and household structure for children’s adjustment during periods of home confinement and can help formulate tangible guidelines to support family mental health during this public health crisis.

Authors

• Avigail Gordon Hacker, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev
  Presenting Author

• Alisa Egotubov, Ben Gurion University of the Negev
  Non-Presenting Author

• Noa Gueron-Sela, Ben Gurion University of the Negev
  Non-Presenting Author