Peer-reviewed article
Parents’ Family Coping Strategies during the Pandemic: Effects on Parent and Child Well-Being
Lindsey R. Gedaly, Joseph A. Cifelli, Mark Ethan Feinberg, Michelle L. Hostetler ·
Summary
Written by AI, not yet AICS's view · claude-haiku-4-5-20251001This study examined how parents coped with the COVID-19 pandemic and whether their coping strategies affected family and child well-being. Researchers surveyed 277 parents from 174 families twice in 2020, asking about coping strategies and measuring outcomes including parent and child mental health, relationship quality, and parenting quality. Four types of coping strategies were identified: family cohesion, adaptability, child-focused approaches, and healthy habits. Only adaptability showed effects, being associated with improvements in couple relationship quality but also increases in child behavioral problems.
Key points
- Four coping strategy groups were identified: Family Cohesion, Adaptability, Child-Focused, and Healthy Habits
- Family Cohesion, Child-Focused, and Healthy Habits strategies did not predict improvements in measured outcomes
- Adaptability was associated with increased couple relationship quality from Month 1 to Month 2
- Adaptability was also associated with increases in both child internalizing and externalizing behaviors
- The study suggests that pandemic coping strategies may have different effects on parents versus children
Limitations
The study uses data from families who had previously participated in a preventive intervention trial, which may not represent all families. The short time frame (two months) limits understanding of longer-term effects of coping strategies.
Abstract
The COVID-19 pandemic presented a significant challenge to the wellbeing of parents, children, and families. The present study aimed to understand the strategies families used to cope with the COVID-19 pandemic and their effects on family and individual functioning. In April and May 2020, and then one month later, 277 parents from 174 families who had previously participated in a trial of a family preventive intervention were invited to participate in an online survey regarding the COVID-19 pandemic. Parents were asked to share the strategies they were using to cope that they found most effective, and responses were coded into 4 groups of coping strategies: Family Cohesion, Adaptability, Child-Focused, and Healthy Habits. At both months of data collection, parents completed measures regarding parent and child mental health and well-being, couple and coparenting relationship quality, parenting quality, and family cohesion. Strategies that fell under Family Cohesion, Child-Focused, and Healthy Habits did not predict any of the outcomes. Adaptability was associated with increases in couple relationship quality and child internalizing and externalizing behaviors from Month 1 to Month 2. The results suggest that the strategies parents use to help their families cope with COVID may have differing effects on parents and children.
Findings the Hub has extracted
Each claim below is labelled by its type of design and links back to this report.
Problem
Pandemic-related stress and need for family coping strategies to maintain well-being during COVID-19
- Intervention
- Family coping strategies categorized as Family Cohesion, Adaptability, Child-Focused approaches, and Healthy Habits
- Population
- 277 parents from 174 families in the US who had previously participated in a family preventive intervention trial
Key finding
Adaptability strategies were associated with increases in couple relationship quality between Month 1 and Month 2