Impact of COVID-19 on maternal health and child care behavior: Evidence from a quasi-experimental study of vulnerable communities in Boa Vista, Brazil.
Child Abuse Negl
; 129: 105667, 2022 07.
Article
in English
| MEDLINE | ID: covidwho-1821183
ABSTRACT
BACKGROUND:
COVID-19 related distress has been shown to have negative associations with family well-being.OBJECTIVES:
To determine the immediate impact of acute COVID-19 infection on maternal well-being and parenting practices among Brazilian families. PARTICIPANTS ANDSETTING:
We studied 2'579 mothers (29'913 observations) of young children from vulnerable neighborhoods in Boa Vista, Brazil over 12 months.METHODS:
We monitored family health and caregiving behavior including the incidence of COVID-19 infections in the surveyed households through bi-weekly phone interviews over 50 weeks, from June 2020 to May 2021. Primary outcomes were home-based child stimulation, positive parenting behavior, and parenting stress. We used fixed effects panel regressions to estimate the impact of household COVID-19 infections on parenting outcomes.RESULTS:
Over the study period, 441 participants (17.1%; 831 (3.0%) observations) reported at least 1 positive COVID-19 infection in their household. Household COVID-19 infections significantly reduced home-based stimulation by 0.10 SDs (95%CI -0.18, -0.01), positive parenting behaviors by 0.14 SDs (-0.21, -0.01), and increased parenting stress by 0.07 SDs (0.02, 0.12). The impact on home-based stimulation was most pronounced when the mother herself had a COVID-19 infection (-0.16; -0.29, -0.04). Parenting stress responded most strongly to mother or child COVID-19 infections. Effects were relatively short-lived, only children's infections' on parental stress was still detectable 2 weeks after initial infection.CONCLUSION:
Our findings suggest that COVID-19 infections cause substantial disruptions in children's home environments - additional short-term support for families with acute infections could attenuate the negative impact on children's home environment during the pandemic.Keywords
Full text:
Available
Collection:
International databases
Database:
MEDLINE
Main subject:
Child Care
/
COVID-19
Type of study:
Experimental Studies
/
Observational study
/
Prognostic study
Limits:
Child
/
Child, preschool
/
Female
/
Humans
Country/Region as subject:
South America
/
Brazil
Language:
English
Journal:
Child Abuse Negl
Year:
2022
Document Type:
Article
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