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

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.

The Recover Study: A Cross-Sectional Examination of the Relationship Between Ontario Parents’ Resilience and COVID-19-Related Stressors

“…That said, based on previous research (e.g., Cusinato et al, 2020 ; Laufer & Bitton, 2021 ; Romero et al, 2020 ) it is likely that parents’ resilience helped to mitigate the impacts of COVID-19-related psychological stressors. This finding is in line with previous work conducted on parents ( n = 353; M age = 42.15; 64% female) in Italy by Marzilli et al (2021) who investigated resilience, stress, and mental health of parents of school-aged children (M age = 9.28). The authors reported that parents’ distress due to COVID-19 was significantly and negatively associated with their resilience ( r = −0.27, p < .01; Marzilli et al, 2021 ).…”

“…This finding is in line with previous work conducted on parents ( n = 353; M age = 42.15; 64% female) in Italy by Marzilli et al (2021) who investigated resilience, stress, and mental health of parents of school-aged children (M age = 9.28). The authors reported that parents’ distress due to COVID-19 was significantly and negatively associated with their resilience ( r = −0.27, p < .01; Marzilli et al, 2021 ). Similar findings were noted in Lim et al (2021) Singapore-based study exploring factors affecting parents’ psychological distress throughout the pandemic ( n = 107; 80.4% female).…”

The impact of COVID-19 pandemic on psychopathological symptoms in mothers and their school-age children before, during and after the COVID-19 pandemic peak

“…Four hundred mothers and their children were selected from a larger previous study (Marzilli et al, 2021 ) started before the COVID-19 outbreak (in October 2019; T1) and re-contacted during the first wave of the pandemic (March 2020; T2), and in October 2021 (T3). The recruitment of the subjects for this research was based on consecutive sampling of individuals who (in the previous study) declared their availability to be re-contacted for other studies.…”

Mental Health Status of French School-Aged Children’s Parents during the COVID-19 Lockdown and Its Associated Factors

“…Past studies of other pandemics have also shown that resilience plays a key role in mitigating the negative effects of stress on parents. Recent studies further point in this direction in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic [ 22 ]. Although data on youths are starting to be published, relevant data from France on this topic are lacking.…”