Poster #114 - A Longitudinal Assessment of Depressed Mood in Parental Caregivers of Children with Special Health-Care Needs during the COVID-19

• In Event: Poster Session 06

Abstract

During the COVID-19 pandemic, parents experienced increased stressors leading to poor mental health outcome (Brown et al., 2020; Kerr et al., 2021). Parents of children with special-health care needs (CSHCN) are a particularly vulnerable population as there are increased care demands and a need for a wide-range of services that have mostly been inaccessible during the beginning pandemic. This longitudinal study aimed to assess the well-being trajectories of parents with CSHCN (n=264) and parents without CSHCN (n=807) at three time points during the first 18 months of the COVID-19 pandemic. We used three waves of data from the Survey of the Health of Wisconsin’s COVID-19 Community Impact Survey (Wave 1: May-June 2020; Wave 2: January-February 2021; Wave 3: June 2021; n=1060 observations of 575 unique respondents). Parents of CSHCN were identified as those providing care for a child with an illness or disability. Depressed mood (PHQ-2; mean=1.07, SD=1.43) was regressed on caregiver status and covariates in mixed models accounting for repeated measures. On average, parents of CSHCN reported poorer depressed mood compared to non-CSHCN parents (beta=0.33, p<.001). The trajectories of depressed mood did not differ between groups, whereby depressed mood remained the same from Wave 1 to Wave 2 (mean of 1.22 versus 1.03, p=.067), yet significantly decreased by Wave 3 (mean=0.96, p=.002). The following factors were associated with poorer depressed mood: higher perception of COVID-19 threat (beta=.07, p<.0001), delay in care (beta=.19, p.039), having a high school education or less (beta=0.48, p=.005), or caregiver having more health conditions (beta=0.17, p<.0001). An increase in age was negatively associated with depressed mood (beta= -.016, p<.001). The findings reveal the negative mental health consequences of the pandemic experienced by parents of CSHCN and non-CSHCN parents, with a gradual improvement in outcomes over a 1-year period. Furthermore, this study elucidates factors that may influence the trajectories of mental health outcomes during community-wide disasters.

Authors

• Nadia Al Nassar, University of Wisconsin - Madison
  Presenting Author

• Kristin Litzelman, University of Wisconsin-Madison

• Margaret L. Kerr, University of Wisconsin - Madison

• Christina N Kim, NYU Grossman school of medicine