Child Psychological Functioning During the COVID-19 Lockdown: An Ecological, Family-Centered Approach.
Karine Dubois-Comtois, Sabrina Suffren, Diane St-Laurent and 2 others
PMID 34518496WHAT IT FOUND
During lockdown, children's internalizing problems linked to parent depression and poor attachment security.
Externalizing problems linked to family chaos and dysfunction. Children's COVID-19 anxiety tracked with their own fear of being alone and their parents' anxiety, not family income.
Key findings
01Children with higher internalizing problems reported lower attachment security to parents and higher aversion to aloneness, while their parents reported higher depressive symptoms.
02Children with more externalizing behavior problems came from homes with greater family dysfunction and chaos, and had lower attachment security.
03Child anxiety toward COVID-19 was significantly associated with parent anxiety toward COVID-19 and child aversion to aloneness.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for OTsWhat it means for SLPs
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What it does not show
The study was cross-sectional, so it cannot prove that these factors caused the child's problems; it only shows they happened at the same time. There was no baseline data from before the lockdown, so it is unclear if these associations changed or existed prior to the pandemic. The sample was mostly middle-to-high income families from Quebec, so results may not apply to lower-income families or other cultural contexts. Research assistants could not verify if children answered the survey in complete privacy, which might have influenced their responses. The study did not report the racial or ethnic breakdown of the sample.
Declared interests
The authors declare no conflict of interest.
The easy way to misread this
Do not assume that financial stress from the pandemic caused these behavioral issues in children. The study found no significant link between changes in family income and child behavior problems, suggesting that relational factors like attachment and family chaos were more predictive in this sample.