Arbeau Kim, Atallah Serena, St Pierre Jeff
Applied Research and Evaluation Department, Child and Parent Resource Institute, 600 Sanatorium Road, London, ON N6H 3W7 Canada.
Department of Psychology, Social Science Centre, Western University, London, ON N6A 5C2 Canada.
J Child Adolesc Trauma. 2025 Jan 3;18(2):497-514. doi: 10.1007/s40653-024-00676-9. eCollection 2025 Jun.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, families with children who had complex special needs faced many obstacles and had less resources available to them. Little published research has described post-lockdown family functioning in clinical samples. The current study investigated caregiver well-being, family functioning, and child/youth symptomatology in three Canadian samples of families with children/youth who had pre-existing, complex, emotional, behavioural, developmental, and mental health needs pre-pandemic (clinic intake within 1 year prior to March 2020), COVID pandemic (clinic intake 1 year during societal lockdowns), and post-restrictions (clinic intake between summer 2022 and summer 2023). Cross-sectional archival data ( > 300 in each cohort) were compared from assessments completed by families as standard of care at a tertiary children's service agency. As predicted, the pandemic intake sample reported significantly more parental mental health challenges, stress, conflicts, and went on fewer recreational outings than the pre-pandemic sample. While parent stress levels and family outing rates in the post-restriction sample resembled the pre-pandemic sample, post-lockdown parental mental health symptoms, family conflict, and family respite levels indicate that families are still recovering. Child symptom levels were high in all three samples, likely a result of intake criteria at this tertiary mental health agency. Research recommendations are offered. Clinical agencies should be mindful that some families of children with complex needs may still be impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic changes and consider using a family oriented, trauma-informed care approach to assess the effect of the pandemic.
在新冠疫情期间，家中有复杂特殊需求儿童的家庭面临诸多障碍，且可利用的资源较少。已发表的研究很少描述临床样本中解封后的家庭功能情况。本研究调查了加拿大三个样本家庭中照顾者的幸福感、家庭功能以及儿童/青少年的症状表现。这些家庭中的儿童/青少年在疫情前就存在复杂的情感、行为、发育和心理健康需求（2020年3月前1年内进行门诊登记），处于新冠疫情期间（在社会封锁期间进行门诊登记1年），以及在限制措施解除后（2022年夏季至2023年夏季期间进行门诊登记）。对一个三级儿童服务机构作为标准护理由家庭完成的评估中的横断面存档数据（每个队列超过300份）进行了比较。正如预期的那样，疫情期间门诊登记的样本报告的父母心理健康挑战、压力、冲突显著更多，娱乐出行次数也比疫情前的样本少。虽然限制措施解除后样本中的父母压力水平和家庭出行率与疫情前的样本相似，但解封后父母的心理健康症状、家庭冲突和家庭喘息水平表明家庭仍在恢复中。所有三个样本中的儿童症状水平都很高，这可能是该三级心理健康机构的登记标准所致。本文还提供了研究建议。临床机构应注意，一些有复杂需求儿童的家庭可能仍受到新冠疫情变化的影响，并考虑采用以家庭为导向、创伤知情的护理方法来评估疫情的影响。
