Resilience in mothers during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Abstract

The coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic has brought immense psychological pressure and disruptions to daily life for all individuals, and particularly children, parents, and families. Despite these difficulties, parents are able to show resilience through adaptive coping and positive parenting behaviors. Although there is robust research on resilience in children, very little research has tested predictors of parental resilience. The present study presents descriptive information about mothers’ pandemic-related stressors and positive changes and then tests whether prepandemic maternal well-being and child effortful control predicted mothers’ resilient parental outcomes (positive behavior and coping) through the mediators of maternal self-compassion, adherence to family routines, and child coping. The sample comprised 95 mothers (95.38% European American, 3.2% African American, and 1.1% Asian American) with a mean age of 38.21 years (SD = 5.71 years, Range = 25.72–51.60 years) and education ranging from a high school to an advanced degree (M = 16.26 years, SD = 2.28 years, Range = 12–21 years). Results revealed that prepandemic maternal well-being predicted adaptive coping both directly and indirectly through self-compassion. Children’s effortful control predicted maternal adaptive coping indirectly through children’s own adaptive coping, and predicted mothers’ positive parenting behaviors directly. Posthoc models revealed adherence to routines to be a correlate and outcome, rather than predictor, of positive parenting and bidirectional relations between parent and child coping. This study provides evidence for parent, child, and family-level factors related to parental resilience during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Health Care Utilization During the COVID-19 Pandemic Among Individuals Born Preterm

“…Understanding the factors associated with overall health care use as well as symptom-related use during the COVID-19 pandemic may identify optimal practice strategies and target care, particularly during pandemic surges. Potential approaches could include COVID-19–related educational tools that address specific preterm birth–related conditions and how this may affect symptoms, refining telemedicine services tailored to individuals with special health care needs and identifying strategies that may foster parental well-being during child illness, such as coping mechanisms and resiliency . For this cohort, it was reassuring to see that there were no differences in overall missed health care appointments between preterm vs term-born individuals, particularly due to parental worry about entering the health care practitioner office.…”

Parents with intellectual disability reporting on factors affecting their caregiving in the wake of the COVID‐19 pandemic: A qualitative study

“…Influential factors, such as accessibility of adapted information, and professional and social support, also corroborate theory and research on the importance of contextual factors for the caregiving of parents with intellectual disability (Feldman & Aunos, 2020 ). The influence of these factors during the pandemic is not unique for parents with intellectual disability (Jones et al, 2022 ; Lee et al, 2021 ; Roos et al, 2021 ; Thorell et al, 2022 ). However, parents with intellectual disability may have been more heavily impacted due to lower levels of internal and external coping resources (Feldman et al, 1997 ).…”

“…The pandemic's broad effects resulted in increased caregiving demands, reduced coping resources, and increased parenting stress, in line with stress‐resources perspectives (Meppelder et al, 2015 ; Prime et al, 2020 ). This was in part due to effects on the children, who were moodier and required more guidance, attesting to bidirectional effects between children and caregivers during the pandemic (Jones et al, 2022 ). It was also in part due to reduced social and professional support, which further increased caregiving demands.…”

“…It is important to note that the majority of the parents reported pre‐existing mental health problems, and some parents reported that their mental health was negatively impacted by the pandemic. Low pre‐pandemic well‐being and mental health problems during the pandemic has been associated with lower‐quality caregiving among parents in general (Jones et al, 2022 ; Roos et al, 2021 ). Mental health problems may thus have further reduced internal resources for coping with the caregiving demands.…”

“…Pandemic research on caregiving is still relatively scarce, but studies have reported increased caregiving responsibilities, parenting stress and strains on parental capacities (Calvano et al, 2021 ; Lee et al, 2021 ; Roos et al, 2021 ). Pandemic research on risk and resilience has also emphasised bidirectional influences between parents and children, and linked lower‐quality parenting to pre‐pandemic mental health problems and limited social support, the magnitude of pandemic‐related stressors, and caregiver mental health problems and unmet childcare needs during the pandemic (Beach et al, 2021 ; Jones et al, 2022 ). Most research thus far has been conducted with families with relatively high socioeconomic status, and there is as of yet no research on parents with intellectual disability.…”