Parental psychological distress associated with COVID-19 outbreak: A large-scale multicenter survey from Turkey

Alperen Bıkmazer*, Muhammed Tayyib Kadak, Vahdet Görmez, Uğur Doğan, Zeynep Dilara Aslankaya, Fulya Bakır, Mahmut Cem Tarakçıoğlu, İlyas Kaya, Yusuf Yasin Gümüş, İbrahim Selçuk Esin, Ali Karayağmurlu, İbrahim Adak, Ferhat Yaylacı, Barış Güller, Yaşar Tanır, Zehra Koyuncu, Nihal Serdengeçti, Çağatay Ermiş, Gül Bilgin Kaçmaz, Hatice GülşenHicran Doğru, Mohammed Al Bayati, Büşra Üstündağ, Enes Gökler, Gonca Özyurt, Burak Baykara, Özalp Ekinci, Şaziye Senem Başgül, Aynur Görmez, Neslihan İnal Emiroğlu, Hakan Türkçapar, Mücahit Öztürk

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

22 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Aims: Pandemics can cause substantial psychological distress; however, we do not know the impact of the COVID-19 related lockdown and mental health burden on the parents of school age children. We aimed to comparatively examine the COVID-19 related the stress and psychological burden of the parents with different occupational, locational, and mental health status related backgrounds. Methods: A large-scale multicenter online survey was completed by the parents (n = 3,278) of children aged 6 to 18 years, parents with different occupational (health care workers—HCW [18.2%] vs. others), geographical (İstanbul [38.2%] vs. others), and psychiatric (child with a mental disorder [37.8%]) backgrounds. Results: Multivariable logistic regression analysis showed that being a HCW parent (odds ratio 1.79, p <.001), a mother (odds ratio 1.67, p <.001), and a younger parent (odds ratio 0.98, p =.012); living with an adult with a chronic physical illness (odds ratio 1.38, p <.001), having an acquaintance diagnosed with COVID-19 (odds ratio 1.22, p =.043), positive psychiatric history (odds ratio 1.29, p <.001), and living with a child with moderate or high emotional distress (odds ratio 1.29, p <.001; vs. odds ratio 2.61, p <.001) were independently associated with significant parental distress. Conclusions: Parents report significant psychological distress associated with COVID-19 pandemic and further research is needed to investigate its wider impact including on the whole family unit.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)696-704
Number of pages9
JournalInternational Journal of Social Psychiatry
Volume67
Issue number6
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Sept 2021
Externally publishedYes

Keywords

  • COVID 19
  • children
  • mental health
  • pandemic
  • parent

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