College of Social Work, The Ohio State University, 1947 College Road N, Columbus, OH, 43210, USA.
Prevention Research Center, Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation, 2150 Shattuck Ave., Suite 601, Berkeley, CA, 94704, USA.
Soc Sci Med. 2021 Jun;279:114025. doi: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2021.114025. Epub 2021 May 11.
In spring 2020, many states in the United States enacted stay-at-home orders to limit the spread of COVID-19 and lessen effects on hospitals and health care workers. This required parents to act in new roles without much support. Although studies have asked parents about stress before and during the pandemic, none have examined how stress may have fluctuated throughout the day and the characteristics related to those daily changes.
Our study assesses how time-varying (e.g., presence of a focal child) and day-varying (e.g., weekend vs. weekday) factors were related to parents' level of stress.
We use Ecological Momentary Assessment to examine stress three times a day (10 a.m., 3 p.m., and 9 p.m.) for 14 days. We include two different dates hypothesized to be related to parents' stress levels: (1) when Ohio announced schools would go virtual for the rest of the academic year and (2) when most retail businesses were allowed to re-open. Our sample of 332 individuals, recruited via Facebook, Craigslist, and word of mouth, completed 13,360 of these brief surveys during April-May 2020. Data were analyzed using generalized ordered logit models.
Parents report lower levels of stress when completing the 9 p.m. survey, but higher levels when they were at work, during weekdays (compared to weekends) or when they were with the focal child. COVID-19 milestone dates were not related to stress levels.
Parents need some form of respite (e.g. child care, child-only activities) to reduce stress, especially during the week when parents are juggling their outside employment and their child(ren)'s schooling. Providing parents with skills and tools to identify and reduce stress, such as apps monitoring heart rate or providing deep breathing techniques, may be one way of helping parents cope with extremely stressful situations.
2020 年春季，美国许多州颁布了居家令，以限制 COVID-19 的传播并减轻对医院和医护人员的影响。这要求父母在没有太多支持的情况下扮演新的角色。尽管之前和大流行期间已经有研究询问过父母的压力情况，但没有一项研究探讨过压力如何随时间波动，以及与这些日常变化相关的特征。
我们的研究评估了时变（例如，有焦点儿童在场）和日变（例如，周末与工作日）因素与父母压力水平的关系。
我们使用生态瞬时评估（Ecological Momentary Assessment）每天三次（上午 10 点、下午 3 点和晚上 9 点）评估 14 天的压力。我们包括两个假设与父母压力水平相关的不同日期：（1）俄亥俄州宣布本学年其余时间学校将转为虚拟学习，（2）大多数零售企业获准重新开业。我们的样本包括通过 Facebook、Craigslist 和口碑招募的 332 名个体，他们在 2020 年 4 月至 5 月期间完成了 13360 次简短调查。使用广义有序逻辑回归模型分析数据。
父母在完成晚上 9 点的调查时报告的压力水平较低，但在工作时、在工作日（与周末相比）或与焦点儿童在一起时压力水平较高。COVID-19 里程碑日期与压力水平无关。
父母需要某种形式的喘息（例如，儿童保育、儿童专属活动）来减轻压力，尤其是在父母既要兼顾外部工作又要兼顾子女教育的工作日。为父母提供识别和减轻压力的技能和工具，例如监测心率的应用程序或提供深呼吸技术，可能是帮助父母应对极度紧张情况的一种方式。
