Between May 2020 and May 2021, ECHO conducted collaborative research led by Person Reported Outcomes (PRO) Core investigator Courtney K. Blackwell, PhD of Northwestern University to investigate COVID-19 pandemic-related family hardships associated with child stress and well-being. This research, titled “Youth well-being during the COVID-19 pandemic,” is published in Pediatrics.
The results of this study demonstrated that families who faced more hardships related to the COVID-19 pandemic had higher levels of both caregiver and child stress and lower child life satisfaction. However, being more socially connected to peers and engaging in family activities led to higher life satisfaction overall. The researchers found that for younger children, family engagement decreased the negative effect of COVID-19 pandemic-related stress on their life satisfaction. For adolescents, pre-existing anxiety and/or depression increased their risk for lower life satisfaction during the COVID-19 pandemic.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, families have faced hardships and interruptions to their daily lives. These disruptions are likely to have a lasting effect on the well-being of children, but the extent of this effect is still unknown. Additionally, little is known about how families can protect their children from COVID-19 pandemic-related stress and promote their positive mental health.
To conduct this research, Dr. Blackwell and her team surveyed more than 1,600 families from 30 US states about their COVID-19 pandemic experience. This study included both parent-reported surveys on children aged 2-12 years and self-reported surveys on adolescents aged 11-17 years. The researchers used survey data from 14 ECHO cohorts across the US to evaluate how COVID-19 pandemic-related family hardships have affected caregiver and child stress, and how stress, social connection, family engagement, and pre-existing mental health conditions have affected children’s life satisfaction.
The study findings demonstrate some of the varied ways that families can cope with adverse events and promote their children’s well-being through family engagement and fostering peer social connectedness. “This study also showed that stress and well-being are not direct opposites,” said Dr. Blackwell, “suggesting the need for future interventions that target both decreasing children’s stress and improving their well-being rather than one or the other.”
The next steps for this research include focusing in on specific COVID-19-related family hardships in order to identify the hardships that contribute the most to child stress and develop targeted strategies for improving child well-being.