Parents’ Psychological Distress During COVID-19: Correlates and Relations with Parents’ Engagement in Early Education

ABSTRACT

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused a wide range of psychological problems among parents and posed significant challenges to their mental health. However, there is a lack of research exploring the antecedents and consequences of parents’ psychological distress during the pandemic. This study investigated the familial and individual antecedents and childrearing outcomes of psychological distress (depression, anxiety, worry, and loneliness) among 504 parents of preschool children in Zhengzhou, China. Research Findings: The results showed that both familial (family socioeconomic status, changes in family income during the pandemic, family physical health, and household chaos) and individual (resilience) factors were related to parents’ symptoms of psychological distress. Loneliness was negatively related to parents’ involvement in children’s education, and feelings of worry were positively associated with increases in the parents’ time spent engaging with children indoors (e.g. helping children with homework and disciplining children). Practice or Policy: The findings underscore the significance of identifying the risk factors of parents’ psychological distress during the pandemic. They also have important implications for the design of parent- and family-based interventions to alleviate the adverse effects of the pandemic on parents’ psychological distress and childrearing practices.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Supplementary Material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/10409289.2024.2336658.

Additional information

Funding

This study was supported by the Seed Fund for Basic Research from The University of Hong Kong to Xiao Zhang [No. 202011159030]. The data, study materials, quantitative analytic methods and analysis code are available upon request.