To quantify the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and public health interventions on parent and child mental health and family relationships, we examined change in individual and family functioning in a sample of parents enrolled in a prevention trial; we examined change before the pandemic (2017–2019) when children were an average of 7 years old to the first months after the imposition of widespread public health interventions in the United States (2020) with paired t tests and HLM models. We examined moderation by parent gender, education, family income, and coparenting conflict. We found large deteriorations from before the pandemic to the first months of the pandemic in child internalizing and externalizing problems and parent depression, and a moderate decline in coparenting quality. Smaller changes were found for parent anxiety and parenting quality. Mothers and families with lower levels of income were at particular risk for deterioration in well-being. Results indicate a need for widespread family support and intervention to prevent potential family “scarring,” that is, prolonged, intertwined individual mental health and family relationship problems.

中文翻译：

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COVID-19 大流行对父母、儿童和家庭功能的影响

为了量化 COVID-19 大流行和公共卫生干预措施对父母和儿童心理健康和家庭关系的影响，我们检查了参加预防试验的父母样本中个人和家庭功能的变化；我们通过配对 t 检验和 HLM 模型研究了大流行之前（2017-2019 年）儿童平均年龄为 7 岁到美国（2020 年）实施广泛公共卫生干预措施后最初几个月的变化。我们研究了父母性别、教育程度、家庭收入和共同养育冲突的调节作用。我们发现，从大流行前到大流行的头几个月，儿童的内化和外化问题以及父母抑郁症大幅恶化，共同养育质量略有下降。父母焦虑和养育质量的变化较小。收入水平较低的母亲和家庭尤其面临福祉恶化的风险。结果表明，需要广泛的家庭支持和干预，以防止潜在的家庭“疤痕”，即长期、相互交织的个人心理健康和家庭关系问题。