Abstract
Covid-19 pandemic has changed the routines of families all over the world. From March 2020 up to today, Italian families are still struggling for adaptation. Parents of children and adolescents with a clinical diagnosis are more at risk for parental burnout, depression, and anxiety, and they are now experiencing restrictions in many services families relied on. Home-based and hospital-based interventions based on the Play Specialist’s approach have been limited due to anti-covid norms. Internationally, Play Specialist intervention has been empirically demonstrated effective in diminishing children’s negative emotions in relation to medical procedures and in increasing adaptation and compliance towards medical settings. Plus, Play Specialist’s intervention indirect effect on parental wellbeing is still unexplored. In Italy, differently from UK and USA, the Play Specialist intervention is not certified in the health-care system yet. The present study tests the effects on parental psychosocial health of a telematic adaptation of the Play Specialist approach (TPS), conducted in the post-lockdown months in Italy. Two groups of parents (N=33, Mean age=43.36, SD=9.81, Female= 66% receiving the TPS intervention, and N=33 Mean age=41.84, SD=6.15, Female=78% controls) of children in clinical conditions are compared. Parental burnout, anxiety, stress, depression, social support, and parental perception of children’s emotional problems have been measured via self-report questionnaires. Analysis of covariance reveals that the TPS group is less stressed, perceives higher social support, lower parental burnout (i.e., emotional distancing, contrast with other/previous Self, fed-up feeling), lower emotional and behavioural child’s problems than the control group. These findings are addressed at encouraging both research and practice around the Play Specialist’s intervention beyond the hospital-context.
Highlights
Parents have been divided in two conditions: (a) the Play Specialist approach (TPS) group consisting of parents from families with children currently participating to the TPS intervention provided by Porto dei Piccoli charity (Genoa, Italy) through two-times a week video-call sessions; (b) Control group consisting of parents from families with children not currently participating to the TPS
The present research examines whether parents of children in a wide range of medical conditions benefitted from TPS intervention in the months after Italian covid-19 lockdown [2]
These data align with recent research demonstrating the association between parents’ and children’s wellbeing during covid-19 outbreak in Italy [1]. In such an interlaced model of family health, this is one of the first studies examining the Play Specialist approach’s indirect effects of parents, in addition to previous evidence on Play Specialist approach’s positive outcomes on children [37,38,39,40,41]. These findings demonstrate that the Play Specialist approach can be practiced online with positive outcomes beyond home-based and hospital-based settings, and for a broader range of pediatric patients (e.g., ADHD, cytomegalovirus, intellectual disability, muscular dystrophy, encephalomyelitis, hydrocephaly, hypoacusis, genetic disease, renal pathologies, pluri-malformation, tetra paresis, and other non-specified conditions) than Autism Spectrum Disorders
Summary
A. Covid-19 restrictive measures: the impact on families. Covid-19 pandemic has reshaped the lives of families all over the world. In Italy, mobility limitations, school and university closing, social isolation, and smart-working are impacting on family-routines since March 2020, when the Government declared the state of lockdown [1,2]. Revised Manuscript received on November 02, 2020.
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