Associations between Work-Family Balance, Parenting Stress, and Marital Conflicts during COVID-19 Pandemic in Singapore

Chinese college students' mental health during the first three months of the COVID-19 pandemic: the protective role of family functioning

Background

Various psychological theories suggest that a supportive family environment protects the mental health of young adults during stressful life events. However, evidence is limited regarding the protective role of family support during a major public health crisis.

Objective

To examine the role of family functioning on mental health among Chinese college students during first stage of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Methods

Between January-March 2020, 1,555 college students (44% female, on average 19 years old) from five Chinese universities participated. Participants rated their family functioning on the Family APGAR Index and their mental health on the Psychological Questionnaires for Emergent Events of Public Health, measuring depression, neurasthenia, fear, obsessive-anxiety and hypochondriasis.

Results

Better family functioning was associated with having fewer psychological symptoms. In addition, we identified three mental health profiles related to the severity across the psychological symptoms: Low-level, medium-level and high-level symptom clusters. Latent profile analysis showed that as family function improved, students were, respectively, 16 to 24% more likely to be in the low-level symptom group, compared to being in the medium symptom group or the high-level symptom group.

Conclusion

These results support the notion that family support may act as a psychological buffer for young adults during a large-scale public health crisis like the COVID-19 pandemic.

Coping strategies and psychological distress among mothers during COVID-19 pandemic: The moderating role of social support

The Indonesian government implemented a large-scale social restriction policy as part of the efforts to tackle the COVID-19 pandemic. This policy impacted the population, including mothers, and caused considerable psychological distress. Individual efforts to cope (avoidant and approach coping strategies) and support from significant persons might help handle the distress experienced by mothers. The purpose of this empirical study is to investigate the effect of individual coping strategies on psychological distress and the moderating role of social support among Indonesian mothers. An online survey was administered from 20th to 25th April 2020 to 1534 Indonesian mothers (Mean age 37.12 years; SD 6.63). Brief COPE (28 items), Depression Anxiety Stress Scale/DASS (18 items), and the Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support/MSPSS (12 items) were used to measure coping strategies, psychological distress, and social support, respectively. IBM SPSS 24 software was used to analyze the data. The result showed that moderate and high levels of social support moderated the relationship between approach coping strategies and psychological distress (B = .041, CI .007-.075). When the mother uses approach coping, her psychological distress will decrease further whenever she receives moderate and high level social support. Any level of social support moderated the relationship between avoidant coping and psychological distress (B = -.100, CI -.138-.061). When mother used avoidant coping, her social support at any level served as buffer to her psychological distress. It can be concluded that mothers need to prioritize implementing approach coping strategies to lower their distress. Those who practiced avoidant coping strategies needed social support from their significant persons to decrease their distress.

Psychological distress among Brazilian workers during the initial stage of the COVID-19 pandemic: a descriptive study

Background

COVID-19 pandemic imposed drastic and abrupt changes to working environment and organization and that might have caused additional negative effects on mental health. Thus, this study aimed to quantify and assess the severity of psychological distress experienced by Brazilian essential and nonessential workers during the first months of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Methods

This descriptive study included 2,903 participants who answered an online questionnaire between April and May 2020. The research questionnaire was translated and culturally adapted to the Brazilian population from a questionnaire developed and validated for the Spanish population. Variables were analyzed using simple and cumulative percentage distributions and measures of central tendency and dispersion. The Wilson score interval was used to calculate confidence interval (CI) for the main outcome, psychological distress.

Results

It was observed a high prevalence (72.6%) of psychological distress among the study's participants. They also presented a median risk perception score of 60 (out of a maximum of 90), and their greatest concern was transmitting the virus to family members, close contacts or patients. Furthermore, it was found a lower sense of coherence and work engagement among the participants than those observed in previous studies conducted in other countries.

Conclusion

Almost three quarters of the study's participants were classified as presenting psychological distress. Thus, it is imperative to provide mental health remotely delivered interventions to workers during public health events that require prolonged social distancing measures.

Differences in family functioning before and during the COVID-19 pandemic: an observational study in Peruvian families

The COVID-19 pandemic has had a major impact on family relationships, as several families have lost family members due to COVID-19 pandemic and become physically and emotionally estranged due to lockdown measures and critically economic periods. Our study contrasted two hypotheses: (1) family functioning changed notably before and after the COVID-19 pandemic initiation in terms of cohesion, flexibility, communication and satisfaction; (2) balanced families have a greater capacity to strictly comply with quarantine (i.e., social confinement), compared to unbalanced families. We performed an observational study comparing family functioning between two independent groups, evaluated before and during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in Peru. A total of 7,980 participants were included in the study. For the first hypothesis, we found that, during the pandemic, families became more balanced in terms of cohesion (adjusted before-during mean difference or β1 = 1.4; 95% CI [1.0-1.7]) and flexibility (β2 = 2.0; 95% CI [1.6-2.4]), and families were less disengaged (β3 = -1.9; 95% CI [-2.3 to -1.5]) and chaotic (β4 = -2.9; 95% CI [-3.3 to -2.4]). Regarding the second hypothesis, we confirmed that families with balanced cohesion (adjusted prevalence ratio or aPR = 1.16; 95% CI [1.12-1.19) and flexibility (aPR = 1.23; 95% CI [1.18-1.27]) allowed greater compliance with quarantine restrictions; while disengaged (aPR = 0.91; 95% CI [0.88-0.93]) and chaotic families (aPR = 0.89; 95% CI [0.87-0.92]) were more likely to partially comply or not comply with the quarantine. Finally, family communication (aPR = 1.17; 95% CI [1.11-1.24]) and satisfaction (aPR = 1.18; 95% CI [1.11-1.25]) also played a role in favouring quarantine compliance. This new evidence enlightens the family systems theory while informing future interventions for improving compliance with quarantine measures in the context of social confinement.

COVID-19's shadow on families: A structural equation model of parental stress, family relationships, and child wellbeing

The present study seeks to contribute to developmental science in emergencies by investigating associations between COVID-19 pandemic-related stressors, parents' stress, family relationships, and child wellbeing. In doing so, we build on recent research that generalizes the assumptions of the Family Stress Model beyond direct economic stressors of households to macro-contextual stressors that operate at the societal level. In the case of our study, these stressors relate to the COVID-19 pandemic, such as health risks and confinement-related stresses. Participants were 783 parents of young children (75% female, Mage = 34.61 years) residing in the United Arab Emirates. They completed an online survey in Fall 2020 and Spring 2021, measuring how the pandemic impacted their lives and the lives of their child (Mage = 47.54 months). A subsample of parents (n = 96) completed the survey for two children. Structural equation modeling showed that pandemic-related stressors contributed to higher stress among parents which, in turn, resulted in lower parent-reported child wellbeing at various times during the pandemic. Family relationships mediated the association between parents' stress and child wellbeing. The present study contributes to our understanding on how large-scale disruption due to COVID-19 pandemic-related stressors gets inside the family, the strength and direction of associations (concurrently and over time), and the timing of mechanisms that impact family processes. The results highlight the need to support families with young children in managing disruptions due to emergencies, such as a global public health crisis, and to determine ways of preventing longstanding consequences on family structures and children's lives.

Autonomy and engagement in self-managing organizations: exploring the relations with job crafting, error orientation and person-environment fit

Introduction

Self-managing organizations are a novel organizational form that radically decentralizes decision authority to adapt to the volatile business environment and the demands of knowledge work, resulting in new resources and demands for the employees. Therefore, building on the job demands-resources theory and the person-environment fit theory, the associations of self-managing organizations with higher perceived individual autonomy were tested. Additionally, the study investigated how job crafting and handling mistakes related to the relationship between job autonomy and work engagement/satisfaction.

Method

A cross-sectional study was conducted to gather data from employees of different self-managing organizations and non-self-managing organizations, and group comparisons and path analyses were applied to test the preregistered hypotheses.

Results

Increased method and decision autonomy, job crafting behaviors, error management orientation, work engagement, and job satisfaction were found in self-managing organizations. Additionally, a surplus of perceived autonomy compared to the ideal autonomy was associated with lower work engagement and job satisfaction compared to a fit between ideal and perceived autonomy. However, job crafting did not relate to a better fit between ideal and perceived autonomy. Decision autonomy predicted higher crafting of challenging demands and structural resources for employees with low error strain. Depending on the autonomy type, learning from errors enhanced or reduced the relationship between perceived autonomy and job crafting.

Discussion

This study showed the importance of addressing the higher level of individual autonomy in self-managing organizations and offered starting points for interventions to support employees with handling high autonomy. Reducing error strain but increasing error learning and risking errors could help increase job crafting and work engagement, particularly in self-managing organizations.

Associations between parental well-being and early learning at home before and during the COVID-19 pandemic: observations from the China Family Panel Studies

Background

COVID-19-related lockdowns and preschool closures resulted in many young children spending all their time at home. Some parents had to manage child care while working from home, and increased demands may have led them to experience considerable stress. Evidence indicates that among parents with young children, those who had pre-existing mental and physical conditions adapted less well than other parents. We considered associations between parental well-being and the home learning environment for young children.

Method

We leveraged data from the nationally representative China Family Panel Studies. We analyzed longitudinal data collected before (2018) and during (2020) the pandemic. Participants were parents of 1,155 preschoolers (aged 3-5 years in 2020). Moderated mediation models were conducted. Maternal and paternal psychological well-being, depression, physical health, and physical illness in 2018 and 2020 were predictors. The frequency of marital and intergenerational conflicts in 2020 were mediators. Primary caregiver-reported engagement in home learning activities and family educational expenditure and parent-reported time spent on child care in 2020 were outcome variables. The number of COVID-19 cases in each province 3 months before the 2020 assessment was the moderator. Child, parental, and household characteristics and urbanicity were covariates.

Results

Controlling for covariates, improvements in parental psychological well-being predicted more home learning activities and increases in paternal depression predicted less time spent by fathers on child care. Negative changes in maternal physical health predicted less family educational expenditure and mothers spending more time on child care. Family conflicts mediated the association between maternal physical illness in 2018 and family educational expenditure. The number of COVID-19 cases in a province (i) was positively associated with mothers spending more time on child care, (ii) moderated the association of improvements in maternal physical health and mothers spending less time on child care, and (iii) moderated the association of family conflicts and more family educational expenditure.

Conclusion

The findings indicate that decreased parental psychological and physical well-being foretells reductions in monetary and non-monetary investment in early learning and care at home. Regional pandemic risk undermines maternal investment in early learning and care, especially for those with pre-existing physical conditions.

COVID-19, Family Dynamics, and Perceived Mental Health Among Families in Singapore

The COVID-19 pandemic presents a significant challenge to the well-being of families with children. Although previous studies have documented COVID-related deterioration in parents' mental health, the underlying mechanisms remain unclear. It is also unclear how much of the deterioration is due to the pandemic itself, versus mandated lockdown measures. We conducted a cross-sectional study in Singapore to examine perceived changes in parents' lives and mental health related to the pandemic and lockdown measures. In June 2020, when Singapore had just exited a nationwide lockdown, we asked families to retrospectively report on the family dynamics, daily activities, and mental health of family members during the phases before local transmission (Pre-pandemic), during local transmission but before the lockdown (Pre-lockdown), and during the lockdown (Lockdown). Results from 180 mothers and 166 fathers from 198 families showed significant changes in jobs and income, childcare arrangements, family dynamics, and parents' perceived mental health across the three timepoints. Mothers' increased time spent on housework was associated with the increase in their mental health problems from Pre-lockdown to Lockdown. Parents' increased conflict with other adults in the household was associated with the increase in their mental health problems from Pre-pandemic to Pre-lockdown, and from Pre-lockdown to Lockdown. Mental health problems increased more for young mothers, parents with a graduate or professional degree, and fathers high on authoritarian values. Findings suggest that both the pandemic and the imposed lockdown measures impact parents' lives and family dynamics, in turn leading to deterioration in parents' mental health.