Emotional status and problem behavior of pre-school children according to the pandemic period and occupational status of the mother

ABSTRACT

The aim was to compare the emotional status and problem behavior of pre-school children according to their mother’s occupational status in two groups before the pandemic and during the pandemic period. Mothers were asked to fill out a survey form containing sociodemographic characteristics, the Emotion Regulation Checklist (ERC) and the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) . Total ERC and Emotion Regulation Subscale scores were significantly higher and Lability-Negativity Subscale scores, conduct problems, peer relationship problems, internalising scores and total SDQ scores were significantly lower in the pandemic period group than in the pre-pandemic group. The occupational status of mothers in the PanP and Pre-Pan groups did not significantly differ in ERC scores, peer relationship problems scores, and prosocial behavior, whereas, internalization was lower during PanP and was associated with the mother’s occupational status.

KEYWORDS:

• Pre-school children
• pandemic
• strengths and difficulties questionnaire
• emotion regulation checklist

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank the participating families.

Disclosure statement

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

Ethics approval

This study was approved by the Ethics Committee of Hacettepe University Faculty of Medicine.

Data availability statement

Data were available on request from corresponding author; [email protected].

Additional information

Funding

The author(s) reported there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.