Predicting parents' stress during the pandemic: Loneliness, children’s social skills, and financial concerns

• In Event: Poster Session 07
  In Poster Session: PS 07 Topic - Solicited Content: COVID-19 Related

Abstract

In early 2020, governments around the world took emergency measures to prevent the spread of COVID-19 such as closing schools and non-essential businesses and instituting social distancing policies.

Objective: We aimed to identify which factors were the greatest predictors of parents’ stress during the early part of the pandemic (June-August 2020). We predicted that parents’ loneliness, financial concerns, their child’s social-emotional health, and changes in their social interactions, would all predict parents’ level of stress. However, we remained agnostic about which factor(s) would account for most of the variability in parents’ stress.

Method: We asked parents of 3-12-year-old children (n = 80) to report on their levels of stress (Perceived Stress Scale; Cohen & Williamson, 1988) and Loneliness (UCLA Loneliness Scale, Russell 1996), the number of hours spent in in-person versus virtual interactions, and their child’s social-emotional skills, and ‘theory of mind’ or social understanding (Strengths & Difficulties Questionnaire; Goodman, 1997; Social Skills Improvement System, Gresham & Elliott, 2008; Children’s Social Understanding Scale; Tahiroglu et al., 2014, respectively). Parents also answered demographic questions and questions about their financial concerns.

Results: We used stepwise regression to test an 8-factor model for predicting parent stress from 1) loneliness, 2) financial concerns, 3) number of children, 4) amount of in-person social interaction with friends and family during the pandemic, 5) the change in the amount of in-person social interaction with friends and family (i.e, before vs. during pandemic), 6) their child’s social skills, 7) their child’s social-emotional difficulties, and 8) their child’s social understanding. The predictor variables had a significant (p < .01) zero-order correlation with parent stress except for: number of children (p = .07), the child’s social understanding (p = .03), and both measures of in-person interactions (ps > .25). Together, 3 factors accounted for 39% of the differences in parents’ reported stress in our sample: Parents’ loneliness accounted for 24% of the variance (p = 000), their child’s social skills accounted for an additional 7% (p = .01), and their financial concerns accounted for an additional 5% (p = .03).

Conclusions and Limitations: The number of, and changes in, the in-person interactions parents reported during the pandemic did not predict increases in their reported stress. Instead, self-reported loneliness was the best predictor of stress. Their child’s level of social skills was also a significant predictor, with parents of children with greater social skills reporting less stress. Unsurprisingly, financial concerns were also a predictor of parents’ stress. Notably, our parents were predominantly female and from a high SES background, therefore these results may not be representative of other populations (e.g. financial concerns are likely to account for even more variance in parental stress in a lower SES sample). These findings highlight 3 areas for potential interventions to reduce parental stress: addressing loneliness, minimizing financial burdens, and promoting children’s social skills. Additional data are being collected to compare and contrast our results with those from a non-parent sample.

Authors

• Charlotte I Stewardson, University of British Columbia (UBC)
  Presenting Author

• Susan A J Birch, University of British Columbia (UBC)
  Non-Presenting Author