ArticleEuropean child & adolescent psychiatry2023
Maternal mood moderates the trajectory of emotional and behavioural problems from pre- to during the COVID-19 lockdown in preschool children.
Article in European child & adolescent psychiatry, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 26 papers, 5 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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Who cites it
26 citing papers in PubMed, 5 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 48 citations in OpenAlex.
- Impact of COVID-19 on emotional and behavioral problems among preschool children: a meta-analysis.BMC pediatrics · 2024Pooled it
- Annual Research Review: The impact of Covid-19 on psychopathology in children and young people worldwide: systematic review of studies with pre- and within-pandemic data.Journal of child psychology and psychiatry, and allied disciplines · 2023Pooled it
- Mental Health Is a Family Affair-Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis on the Associations between Mental Health Problems in Parents and Children during the COVID-19 Pandemic.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2023Pooled it
- Association between Maternal Anxiety and Children's Problem Behaviors: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2022Pooled it
- Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on children's mental health: A systematic review.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2022Pooled it
- Longitudinal associations between play experiences and trajectories of preschoolers' mental health from April-July, 2020.JCPP advances · 2026Article
- Neonatal amygdala and fear processing across early childhood.European child & adolescent psychiatry · 2026Article
- The longitudinal relationship of young children's mental health with parental mental health and demographic factors during the COVID-19 pandemic.Discover mental health · 2025Article
- Behavioural Changes of Late Talkers During the Covid-19 Pandemic, One Year Follow-Up From a Community Sample.Journal of paediatrics and child health · 2025Article
- Impacts of COVID-19 on early childhood mental health.Infant mental health journal · 2025Article
- COVID-19 Unmasked: trajectories, risk and protective factors for mental health outcomes in young Australian children during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic.Australian journal of psychology · 2025Article
- Effects of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Early Childhood Development and Mental Health: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Comparative Studies.Psychology international · 2024Article
- The impact of lockdown on child adjustment: a propensity score matched analysis.BMC psychology · 2024Article
- Short-term and long-term effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on child psychological well-being: a four-wave longitudinal study.European child & adolescent psychiatry · 2024Article
- The change of psychosocial stress factors in families with infants and toddlers during the COVID-19 pandemic. A longitudinal perspective on the CoronabaBY study from Germany.Frontiers in pediatrics · 2024Article
- The impact of maternal mood and economic stress during Covid-19 pandemic on infant behaviour: Findings from the cross-sectional UK Covid-19 New Mum Study.PLOS global public health · 2024Article
- Factors associated with mental health of young children during the COVID-19 pandemic in the Netherlands.Child and adolescent psychiatry and mental health · 2023Article
- Prenatal exposure to environmental air pollution and psychosocial stress jointly contribute to the epigenetic regulation of the serotonin transporter gene in newborns.Molecular psychiatry · 2023Article
- Mental Health Difficulties of Turkish Healthcare Workers and Non-Healthcare Workers and Their Young Children During Coronavirus Disease 2019 Pandemic.Alpha psychiatry · 2023Article
- Anxiety increased among children and adolescents during pandemic-related school closures in Europe: a systematic review and meta-analysis.Child and adolescent psychiatry and mental health · 2023Review
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
3 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
The COVID-19 outbreak and subsequent lockdown have dramatically impacted families' life, raising serious concerns about children's emotional wellbeing. However, few studies have investigated whether the impact of the COVID-19 lockdown on psychological adjustment in youngest can be moderated by maternal mood and, to our knowledge, none of them has adopted a longitudinal design. The main aim of the current study was to explore if the intensity and directionality of maternal mood symptoms moderated the trajectory of emotional and behavioural problems in Italian pre-schoolers from pre- to during the lockdown adopting a longitudinal design. To assess maternal anxiety and depression symptoms, the EPDS and the STAI-Y were filled in by 94 and 88 women before the lockdown, when their children were 1 (Wave P1) and 3 years old (Wave P2), respectively, and by 74 women during the lockdown, when their children were 4 years old (Wave L). Mothers also filled in the CBCL/1 ½-5 to assess their children's emotional and behavioural problems at each assessment wave. As a whole, children's emotional and behavioural problems significantly increased from pre- to during the lockdown. Furthermore, maternal mood moderated this trajectory. In particular, greater maternal mood symptoms were significantly associated with a greater increase in emotional reactive, anxious-depressed, withdrawn and aggressive symptoms during the lockdown. These results contribute to shed light on the role played by maternal emotional wellbeing in buffering the impact of the COVID-19 lockdown on children's behavioural development. Albeit preliminary, the current findings highlight the need to provide timely psychological interventions to distressed mothers to help their children to better cope with the effects of the pandemic.
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