Peer-reviewed article
Child Well‐Being and Family Quality of Life During the COVID‐19 Pandemic
Conné Lategan, Amanda S. Newton, Jennifer D. Thull‐Freedman, Jianling Xie, Kathleen Winston et al. ·
Summary
Written by AI, not yet AICS's view · claude-haiku-4-5-20251001This study compared child well-being and family quality of life between two periods of the COVID-19 pandemic in Canadian children presenting to emergency departments for mental health concerns. Overall child well-being scores remained stable, but family quality of life declined in the later pandemic period. Factors like previous mental health care, autism diagnosis, and inpatient admission were associated with lower well-being, suggesting that pandemic-related family stressors persisted and affected vulnerable children.
Key points
- Family quality of life was significantly lower in the late pandemic period (July 2021-June 2022) compared to the early pandemic period (March 2020-March 2021)
- Child well-being as measured by the Stirling and Warwick-Edinburgh scales remained unchanged between the two pandemic periods
- Children under 13 with previous mental health care or requiring inpatient admission showed lower well-being scores
- Older children with autism diagnoses and those receiving comprehensive ED mental health evaluations had lower well-being scores
- The study included 1,404 children (median age 13 years) from two pediatric emergency departments in Alberta, Canada
Limitations
The study only included children seeking emergency department care for mental health concerns, which is not representative of the general child population or those with milder mental health issues. The research cannot determine whether the observed changes were directly caused by the pandemic or by other concurrent factors affecting this high-risk group.
Abstract
BACKGROUND: Little is known about changes in child well-being and family quality of life (QoL) among children seeking emergency department care because of mental health concerns over the course of the pandemic. METHODS: Prospective cohort study of children < 18 who visited two paediatric EDs in Alberta, Canada, for an acute mental health concern. Early and late pandemic time periods were defined as 15 March 2020-14 March 2021 and 1 July 2021-30 June 2022, respectively. The Stirling Children's Well-being and Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Well-being scales quantified well-being; the Family Quality of Life Scale assessed family QoL. These scales were completed as soon as possible following the ED visit. Linear regression models assessed the association between pandemic period and the change in well-being and family QoL. RESULTS: One thousand four hundred four children were enrolled during the study time periods (50.4% early, 49.6% late). Seventy-two percent (1009/1404) of participants were White, 53.8% (744/1404) were female, and the median age was 13 (IQR, 11-15) years. Well-being remained unchanged between time periods, whereas family QoL was lower in the late pandemic time period than in the early period (mean difference: -2.16, 95% CI: -3.79, -0.53; p = 0.01). Among children < 13 years, previous mental health care and requiring inpatient admission were negatively associated with well-being. Having an autism diagnosis and a comprehensive ED mental health evaluation were negatively associated with well-being in older children. CONCLUSIONS: Reduced family QoL may signal stressors experienced by caregivers and the lingering consequences of the pandemic. Resources that address well-being and support the family unit are needed to improve the mental health of children.
Findings the Hub has extracted
Each claim below is labelled by its type of design and links back to this report.
- Intervention
- Measurement of well-being and family quality of life at two distinct pandemic time periods to assess temporal changes
- Population
- 1,404 children under 18 (50.4% in early pandemic period, 49.6% in late pandemic period; 53.8% female; median age 13 years; 72% White) presenting to two pediatric emergency departments in Alberta, Canada for acute mental health concerns
Key finding
Well-being remained unchanged between early and late pandemic periods