Parental Distress and Perception of Children’s Executive Functioning after the First COVID-19 Lockdown in Italy
Open Access
- 15 September 2021
- journal article
- research article
- Published by MDPI AG in Journal of Clinical Medicine
- Vol. 10 (18), 4170
- https://doi.org/10.3390/jcm10184170
Abstract
The spread of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19), and the consequential first italian lockdown to minimize viral transmission, have resulted in many significant changes in the every-day lives of families, with an increased risk of parental burnout. This study explores the impact of the first COVID-19 lockdown in Italy on parental distress and parental perceptions of children’s executive functions (EFs). Participants were 308 Italian parents with children between 4 and 17 years of age; they were recruited through online advertisements on websites and social media, and they were given an online survey. The measures were: the balance between risks and resources (BR2) and the executive functioning self-report (EF). Findings of the study suggest that the most distressed parents perceived their children as less competent in EF, highlighting a cognitive fragility on attention, memory, and self-regulation (Pearson correlation coefficient, p < 0.05); significant differences were found between parents of children exhibiting typical and atypical patterns of development (ANOVA, p < 0.05). The study reinforces the need to provide families with psychological aid to support parental competence in restrictive lockdown conditions.This publication has 72 references indexed in Scilit:
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