Quaranteens: Prepandemic relationship quality and changes in adolescent internalizing problems during the COVID-19 pandemic.

This preregistered longitudinal study examined changes in adolescents' depressive and anxiety symptoms before and during the COVID-19 pandemic using latent additive piece-wise growth models. It also assessed whether support from and conflict with mothers, fathers, siblings, and best friends explained heterogeneity in change patterns. One hundred and ninety-two Dutch adolescents (Mean age: 14.3 years; 68.8% female) completed online biweekly questionnaires for a year (November 2019-October 2020), consisting of a prepandemic, lockdown, and reopening phase. Depressive symptoms increased following the lockdown and decreased upon reopening. Anxiety symptoms showed an immediate decrease followed by a gradual increase in the reopening phase. Prepandemic family and best friend support and conflict did not explain heterogeneity in depressive and anxiety symptoms during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Daily affect intensity and variability of adolescents and their parents before and during a COVID-19 lockdown.

INTRODUCTION: The corona virus (COVID-19) pandemic may have a prolonged impact on people's lives, with multiple waves of infections and lockdowns, but how a lockdown may alter emotional functioning is still hardly understood. METHODS: In this 100-daily diaries study, we examined how to affect intensity and variability of adolescents (N = 159, Mage = 13.3, 61.6% female) and parents (N = 159, Mage = 45.3, 79.9% female) changed after the onset and during (>50 days) the second COVID-19 lockdown in the Netherlands, using preregistered piecewise growth models. RESULTS: We found only an unexpected increase in parents' positive affect intensity after the lockdown onset, but no immediate changes in negative affect intensity or variability. However, both adolescents and parents reported gradual increases in negative affect intensity and variability as the lockdown prolonged. Lockdown effects did not differ between adolescents and parents. However, within groups, individuals differed. The individual differences in the effects were partly explained by life satisfaction, depressive symptoms, and self-reported lockdown impact. CONCLUSIONS: Overall, these findings suggests that a lockdown triggers changes in daily affective well-being especially as the lockdown prolongs. Individual differences in the effects indicate heterogeneity in the impact of the lockdown on daily affect that was partly explained by baseline life satisfaction and depressive symptoms. However, more knowledge on the causes of this heterogeneity is needed to be able to increase resilience to lockdown effects in the population.

Promoting Daily Well-being in Adolescents using mHealth.

Adolescents are at increased risk for developing mental health problems. The Grow It! app is an mHealth intervention aimed at preventing mental health problems through improving coping by cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT)-inspired challenges as well as self-monitoring of emotions through Experience Sampling Methods (ESM). Yet, little is known about daily changes in well-being and coping during a stressful period, like the COVID-19 pandemic. The current study aimed to elucidate daily changes in positive and negative affect, and adaptive coping, and to better understand the within-person's mechanisms of the Grow It! app. The sample consisted of 12-25-year old Dutch adolescents in two independent cohorts (cohort 1: N = 476, Mage = 16.24, 76.1% female, 88.7% Dutch; cohort 2: N = 814, Mage = 18.45, 82.8% female, 97.2% Dutch). ESM were used to measure daily positive and negative affect and coping (cohort 1: 42 days, 210 assessments per person; cohort 2: 21 days, 105 assessments). The results showed that, on average, adolescents decreased in daily positive affect and adaptive coping, and increased in their experienced negative affect. A positive relation between adaptive coping and positive affect was found, although independent of the CBT-based challenges. Latent class analysis identified two heterogeneous trajectories for both positive and negative affect, indicating that the majority of participants with low to moderate-risk on developing mental health problems were likely to benefit from the Grow It! app.

A Smartphone Serious Game for Adolescents (Grow It! App): Development, Feasibility, and Acceptance Study.

BACKGROUND: Anxiety and mood problems in adolescents often go unnoticed and may therefore remain untreated. Identifying and preventing the development of emotional problems requires monitoring and effective tools to strengthen adolescents' resilience, for example, by enhancing coping skills. OBJECTIVE: This study describes the developmental process, feasibility, and acceptance of Grow It!, a multiplayer serious game app for adolescents aged 12-25 years. The app consists of the experience sampling method (ESM) to monitor thoughts, behaviors, and emotions in daily life to enhance self-insight and daily cognitive behavioral therapy-based challenges to promote adaptive coping. METHODS: Our approach entails an iterative game design process combined with an agile method to develop the smartphone app. The incorporated game features (ie, challenges, chat functionality, and visual representation) in the Grow It! app were co-designed with adolescent end users to increase participant engagement and adherence. RESULTS: The Grow It! app was delivered for Android and iOS in May 2020. Grow It! was offered to adolescents during the COVID-19 crisis between May and December 2020. Participants of the Grow It! COVID-19 study (sample 1: N=685; mean age 16.19, SD 3.11 years; 193/685, 28.2% boys; sample 2: N=1035; mean age 18.78, SD 3.51 years; 193/1035, 18.64% boys) completed 31.5% (13.2/42) to 49.5% (10.4/21) of challenges. Compliance of ESM was suboptimal (35.1/210, 16.7% to 32.5/105, 30.9%). Follow-up questionnaires indicated an overall score of the app of 7.1 out of 10. Moreover, 72.6% (278/383) to 75.6% (487/644) would recommend the app to friends. CONCLUSIONS: To our knowledge, Grow It! is the first gamified ESM app that both measures individual differences in emotional dynamics and offers an integrated cognitive behavioral therapy-based intervention. Our findings support the feasibility and acceptance, and therefore applicability, of the Grow It! app in adolescents. Further iterations of this serious game app will focus on the increase of compliance and on providing participants feedback through their personal mood profiles.

Introduction to the special issue: Parenting and family dynamics in times of the COVID-19 pandemic.

On March 11, 2020, the World Health Organization declared the outbreak of COVID-19 a pandemic. The COVID-19 pandemic brought about worldwide challenges and had a profound impact on family dynamics, relationships, and routines. At the same time, the impact may differ largely due to regional differences in the numbers of infections and severity of preventive measures, as well as individual and contextual risk and protective factors. The aims of this special issue were therefore to (a) provide insight into the impact of the pandemic on the family system and (b) increase our understanding of how this impact may differ between families. This special issue consists of 13 original empirical studies that show how the pandemic affected families across different levels of the family system. At first sight, it seems that many families were able to cope relatively well with the stressors. Yet, for others the demands of the pandemic and pandemic-related measures seemed to exceed their capabilities and available resources. Importantly, the studies in this special issue suggest that the pandemic disproportionally affected children, caregivers and families who were already at risk. Together, the contributions to the special issue offer knowledge on the consequences of both the pandemic and preventive measures on family functioning. At the same time, it also raises questions on the long-term impact of the pandemic and its impact on families who are currently underrepresented in empirical research. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

Parenting adolescents in times of a pandemic: Changes in relationship quality, autonomy support, and parental control?

This Dutch multi-informant study examined effects of the first COVID-19 lockdown (LD; e.g., school closure and social restrictions) on parent-adolescent relationships. Four biweekly measurements before and 4 biweekly measurements during the LD were collected among adolescents (N = 179, Mage = 14.26 years, 69% girls) and their parents (N = 144, Mage = 47.01 years, 81% female). Parents' educational level was relatively diverse: 12% low (high school or lower), 33% medium (vocational training), and 55% high (college or university). Adolescents and parents reported on parental support, parent-adolescent conflict, autonomy support, psychological control, behavioral control, and time spent on various activities. Adolescents spent more time with their parents during LD (before M = 8.6 hr, during M = 12.7 hr), but less time with friends (before M = 8.1 hr, during M = 2.1 hr), and reported on average 13 COVID-19-related rules. Preregistered piecewise growth models confirmed that autonomy support decreased immediately during the LD, but no mean level changes were observed in the other relationship dimensions. During the first 2 months of the LD, parents reported gradual increases in autonomy support and decreases in behavioral control. Moreover, significant differences between families were found in sudden and more gradual relationship changes, which correlated strongly with pre-LD characteristics of the relationship, and in some models with adolescent oppositional defiance and legitimacy beliefs. In sum, findings suggest resilience in most families, but also heterogeneity: Some families were negatively affected, and others were positively affected. A tailored approach is therefore needed to mitigate the impact of COVID-19 on family functioning. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).