The COVID-19 Pandemic and Its Impact on Families' Mental Health: The Role Played by Parenting Stress, Parents' Past Trauma, and Resilience.

Eleonora Marzilli,Alessandra Babore,Carmen Trumello,Luca Cerniglia,Elena Trombini,Leonardo De Pascalis,Renata Tambelli,Silvia Cimino

doi:10.3390/ijerph182111450

Abstract

International research has evidenced the psychological impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on families, and the key role played by parenting stress levels. Although significant associations with parents’ past trauma and resilience have been shown, this study aimed to explore their complex interplay on the relationship between parents’ peritraumatic distress due to COVID-19, parenting stress, and children’s psychopathological difficulties. We recruited 353 parents with children aged two to 16 years via an online survey during the Italian second wave of COVID-19. Parents’ peritraumatic distress due to COVID-19, parenting stress, past trauma and resilience, and children’s psychological difficulties were assessed through self-report and report-form questionnaires. Parents’ past traumas significantly predicted peritraumatic distress due to COVID-19 and children’s psychological difficulties. The relationship between past traumas and children’s psychological difficulties was serial mediated by parents’ peritraumatic distress and parenting stress. Direct and total effects of parent’s resilience on parent’s peritraumatic distress were not significant, but there were significant indirect effects via parenting stress and via parents’ peritraumatic distress and parenting stress, indicating inconsistent mediation. This study evidenced the key risk and protective role played by, respectively, parents’ past traumas exposure and resilience on the relationship between parents’ psychological difficulties due to COVID-19, parenting stress, and children’s psychological difficulties, with important clinical implications.

Highlights

The third section assessed parents’ individual variables that we considered as possible risk and protective factors for parents’ and children’s psychological adaptation to the COVID-19 pandemic
We chose to explore the role played by parenting stress, parents’ past trauma exposure, and resilience, based on previous literature showing their key contribution in the transmission of psychopathological risk from parents to children [42,43,52,53], including the psychopathological impact of the COVID-19 pandemic [40,41,50]
Recent international research on the psychopathological impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and its related restriction on families has evidenced the significant contribution played by parents’ past trauma, resilience, and parenting stress. This is the first study to explore the complex interplay between these variables, evidencing a significant risk and protective role exerted by, respectively, parents’ past trauma and resilience

Summary

Introduction

The Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Families’ Daily Life. In December 2019, the CoronaVirus Disease 19 (COVID-19) appeared in Wuhan, China. Due to its rapid diffusion, on 11 March 2020, it was declared as a global pandemic by the. The Governments of many countries worldwide, including Italy, planned a series of containment measures (e.g., physical distancing, school closures, and work from home), which severely affected the habits of individuals’ everyday lives, especially families with pre-school- and schoolaged children [1,2,3]. In addition to the resulting limitations of freedom, and health and economic concerns, parents of children aged from early childhood to middle adolescence [4,5,6] had to face a dramatic increase in the management of daily family life, Int. J.

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