Abstract
The first Italian lockdown imposed to fight the spread of COVID-19 caused important disruptions in families’ everyday lives. The main aim of this research was to investigate the predictors of psychopathology in children aged 5–10 years, immediately after the national 2-month lockdown. A total of 158 Italian parents (148 mothers, 10 fathers, mean age = 41 years) were recruited and asked to complete an online research concerning their 158 children (76 boys, mean age = 7.4 years). Parents completed questionnaires on parent–child conflict, resilience, temperament, behavior, and previous adverse childhood experiences. Hierarchical regressions showed that children’s psychopathology was predicted by low child resilience, high novelty seeking and harm avoidance, adverse experiences, and high flooding levels. Moreover, girls exposed to adverse experiences appeared more vulnerable to psychopathology. The recruitment of a convenience sample, the small sample size, and the cross-sectional design of our study limit the generalizability and interpretation of the present findings. Nonetheless, this research extends our knowledge of children’s functioning in such an exceptional period. Shedding light on predictors of children’s psychopathology following prolonged quarantine can indeed guide effective psychological interventions now and in future similar situations.
Highlights
All countries in the world have been fighting COVID-19 since December 2019
The main aim of the present study was to explore which kind of factors explain psychopathological difficulties in children after the first Italian national lockdown due to COVID-19
Albeit concerning a relatively small portion of the sample, appear to be in line with the normative scores of the SDQ in Italian children [40], and with the results of another study conducted in a sample of Chinese children during the COVID-19 pandemic [41], showing that
Summary
All countries in the world have been fighting COVID-19 since December 2019. Italy has been one of the most affected European countries and was the first to apply strict measures trying to contain the outbreak. In March 2020, the Italian Prime Minister, with a Decree called “I stay at home”, declared the first national lockdown confining millions of people to their homes and banning any form of social aggregation. This entailed severe travel restrictions and immediate shutdown of schools and most workplaces. Since the start of the COVID-19 emergency, many parents have been working remotely. Under these conditions, the risk of burnout is very high [3,4], and so is the level of parental stress children are exposed to.
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