Poster #33 - Parent Stress Affects Parental Perceptions of Children’s Psychosocial Outcomes During COVID-19

• In Event: Poster Session 19

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic created a range of new stressors for families across the world and dramatically impacted children’s daily lives and routines. This impact likely affected children differently depending on several factors. Using the family stress model, we examined the relationship between family socioeconomic status (SES) and children’s psychosocial functioning during the COVID-19 pandemic. This model suggests that parental stress plays a mediating role in the relationship between SES and various child outcomes (Cogner & Cogner, 2002). The speculated mechanism here is that stress imposed by low SES is believed to affect parents’ interactions with their children (Leinonen et al., 2003). Parents who experience higher levels of stress may be susceptible to engaging in punitive and harsh parenting (Leinonen et al., 2003; Le et al., 2017), and inconsistent parenting practices (Conger & Donellan, 2007), which may have cascading effects on children’s outcomes, such as psychosocial functioning. We investigated several risk and protective factors for this model: social support provided to the family, parent positive (positive reframing and religion) and negative (denial and behavioral disengagement) coping strategies, and parent anxiety and depressive symptoms. A total of 245 families were recruited through online platforms, childcare centers, and medical providers’ offices, out of which 155 families were included in the current study as they completed all surveys required for analyses. Parents completed various surveys pertaining to how COVID-19 affected their families. In terms of SES, 38% reported earning > $125,000, while 32% reported earned < $75,000. The child sample (M = 4.06 years, SD = 1.93 years) was 41% female and 67% Caucasian. Parental stress mediated the relationship between SES and psychosocial outcomes in children (B = -.52, 95% bias corrected bootstrap CI [-.81, -.28]). Additionally, out of all the risk and protective factors, negative coping (B = -.15, p = .006, 95% CI = [.04, .27]), and positive coping (B = -.07, p < .001, 95% CI = [.03, .10]), moderated the relationship between parental stress and psychosocial outcomes. Interestingly, it appears that whether parents engaged in positive or negative coping strategies did not seem to matter, as both of those moderated the effects of parental stress on psychosocial outcomes similarly. Parents who experienced both high stress and used either negative or positive coping strategies tended to rate their children’s psychosocial outcomes as most problematic. In contrast, parents who did not engage in negative or positive coping tended to rate their children’s psychosocial outcomes similarly regardless of how much stress the parents felt. These results may indicate that coping strategies in general tend to make the relationship between parental stress and psychosocial outcomes stronger. Perhaps engaging in coping strategies may make parents more aware of their children’s psychosocial functioning. However, parent coping mechanisms may simply increase as a function of child psychosocial outcomes, as certain behaviors may lead to higher stress and subsequently a higher need for coping. The findings from this study may provide an avenue for understanding the complex relationship between family SES and wellbeing in children and parents.

Authors

• Doroteja Rubez, Case Western Reserve University
  Presenting Author

• Zoe Perrier, Case Western Reserve University

• Elisabeth Cowin, Case Western Reserve University

• Rita Obeid, Case Western Reserve University

• Elizabeth Jane Short, Case Western Reserve