(PS10-B37) Correlates of Parenting Stress During the covid-19 Pandemic and the Protective Role of Parent Psychotherapy Experience in Parents of Children with Developmental Disabilities

The Covid-19 (C-19) pandemic has negatively impacted mental health (Pfefferbaum & North, 2020) and increased stress, particularly among parents (Adams et al., 2021). Pre-pandemic, parents of children with developmental disabilities (DD) reported higher stress than parents of typically-developing children (Miller et al., 1992). Research in this population during the pandemic suggests worsening mental health symptoms and parenting stress (Yılmaz et al., 2021), as well as parent depression and anxiety symptoms relating to psychiatric problems in autistic children (Vasa et al., 2021). These findings emphasize the impact that targeted treatments could have at the individual and family level. In this study, we sought to examine how parenting stress predicts parent and child mental health, as well as how parents’ history of psychotherapy relates to parenting stress during the C-19 pandemic. The information gleaned from this analysis could be used to inform treatment decisions for parents of DD children in order to improve the quality of life of DD children and their caregivers.

Forty parents (87.5% female; 60% non-White; 80% aged 35- 54) of children with DD (72.5% Autism Spectrum Disorder; 10% Down Syndrome; M_age= 11.60, SD_age= 5.62; 77.7% male) completed measures of parent depression (BDI-II; Beck, 1996), parent stress (PSI-4-SF; Abidin, 1995), and child internalizing and externalizing behaviors (Maladaptive Behavior domain from the VABS-II; Sparrow et al., 2016) during the C-19 pandemic. Parents also reported the frequency of psychotherapy they received prior to the pandemic.

 Sixty percent of parents reported high stress ( >80^th %ile), and, of these parents, 45% reported clinically significant stress ( >90^th %ile). Parenting stress predicted parent depression (B = .70 p < .001), child internalizing behaviors (B = .30, p < .001), and child externalizing behaviors (B = .26, p < .001). Further analyses revealed that the frequency of parents’ psychotherapy pre-pandemic was negatively associated with parenting stress during the pandemic (r = -.71, p = .03). This effect is primarily driven by the parental distress subscale (r = -.81, p = .008).

 Our results suggest that higher parenting stress during the C-19 pandemic predicts higher mental health problems in parents and their DD children. The therapeutic histories of parents of DD children, specifically the frequency of psychotherapy prior to the pandemic, relates to significantly lower parenting stress during the pandemic. This encouraging finding suggests that proactive and preventative mental healthcare may help these parents better adapt and cope with the stress commonly associated with disasters like the ongoing C-19 pandemic. Furthermore, interventions that specifically target DD children’s internalizing and externalizing behaviors may prove beneficial in helping reduce parenting stress and improve parents’ overall quality of life. Additionally, improvements in parenting stress may decrease internalizing and externalizing behaviors in the child, thus also improving their quality of life. As such, it is imperative that greater emphasis is placed on increasing access to psychotherapy for parents of DD children so they are better equipped to respond in disaster situations.