Effects of Confinement During COVID-19 on Experienced Stress, Anxiety and Synchronous Psychosocial Functioning Within Mother-Child-Dyads

• In Event: Understanding Dyadic Biobehavioral Synchrony: Developmental Precursors and Functions

Abstract

Background.The global onset of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has been recognized as a significant threat to our physical and mental well-being. Worldwide efforts have been implemented intending to slow down its direct physical effects. In Switzerland these were referred to as confinement, defined by restrictions including school-closure, work-at-home orders and travel restrictions. Evidence indicates that the pandemic and associated constraints have a significant effect on individuals’ psychosocial functioning by inducing increases in emotional distress. Families’ lives are particularly impacted by such constraints. The perceived difficulty of quarantine is a crucial factor undermining parents' and children's well-being, with possible mediating effects through dyadic stress. Past evidence indicates that well-being and stress are moderated by sociocognitive skills, whose development strongly relies on the caregiver-child relationship and dyadic learning. The current study focuses on both, the effects of confinement on dyadic stress, well-being and anxiety and the moderating role of sociocognitive skills as measured prior to confinement using functional neuroimaging during mentalizing. Mentalizing is a sociocognitive skill enabling the understanding of emotions, thoughts, or motives of others and oneself.
Objective.Here we aim:(1) to investigate the impact of COVID-19 related restrictions on child and adult well-being as measured by intra-individual variations over time; (2) to assess synchronous changes in well-being, anxiety, caregiver burden or problem behaviors in mothers and children; (3) to investigate potential protective and/or risk factors (e.g., clinical assessment or neural correlates of mentalizing) for psychosocial functioning and emotional distress during confinement.
Methods.Participants of a previous cross-sectional neuroimaging study investigating socioemotional functioning (including mentalizing during fMRI) were asked to participate. Seventy-one participants (26 children; 11y (7-17y) / 45 adults; 36y among whom 21 were mothers to the 26 children, resulting in 26 mother-child dyads) completed one baseline assessment prior to the onset of COVID-19 (fMRI and psychosocial functioning) and seven assessments across 75 days of confinement (psychosocial functioning including well-being, anxiety, and stress). This resulted in a total of 568 individual testing time points.
Results/Conclusions.In line with our objectives, preliminary findings indicate (1) a significant impact on and change in indicators of psychological well-being throughout confinement. The trajectory of change differs among measures, with everyday functioning, caregiving burden, and anxiety in adults, and mood, emotional and behavioral problems in children, indicating highest strain in the 7th week of confinement. Additionally, self-reported distress in adults was highest in the first week and declined gradually. (2) Composite scores for problem behavior in children were significantly positively correlated with mothers’ general health, anxiety and experienced caregiver burden (Figure1.A), indicating a synchronization of psychophysiological changes within dyads. (3) Furthermore, neuronal correlates of mentalizing in frontal, but not temporoparietal regions, preceded the development of fear and anxiety related to COVID-19 across children and adults. In mothers, higher mentalizing skills as measured through temporoparietal, but not prefrontal activation, were associated with higher reports of caregiver stress. Overall, these findings indicate that prolonged stressful situations, such as confinement, affect dyadic well-being and suggest that higher mentalizing skills potentially add to the strain experienced by mothers during such events.

Authors

• Réka Borbás, Jacobs Center for Productive Youth Development at the University of Zurich
  Presenting Author

• Plamina Dimanova, University of Zurich
  Non-Presenting Author

• Lynn Valérie Fehlbaum, Jacobs Center for Productive Youth Development at the University of Zurich
  Non-Presenting Author

• Alessia Negri, Jacobs Center for Productive Youth Development at the University of Zurich
  Non-Presenting Author

• Nora Maria Raschle, Jacobs Center for Productive Youth Development at the University of Zurich
  Non-Presenting Author