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Does living with children link to unequal impacts of the pandemic on mental health and emotional experiences?

Lijia Guo, Tine Van Bortel, Chiara Lombardo, Steven Martin, David Crepaz-Keay, Shari McDaid, Oliver Chantler, Lucy Thorpe, Susan Solomon, Alec Morton, Antonis Kousoulis, Gavin Davidson

Journal of Public Mental Health

ISSN: 1746-5729

Article publication date: 27 January 2025

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Abstract

Purpose

The COVID-19 pandemic and associated restrictions created a range of potential additional stressors for families, particularly for parents living with children. This study aims to explore whether there were any differences in the mental health and emotional experiences of those living with children, and those who were not, during the pandemic and related lockdowns; and whether there were any specific risk factors associated with these mental health outcomes and emotional experiences.

Design/methodology/approach

Regression analyses of ten-wave repeated cross-sectional surveys between May 2020 and November 2021 on a total sample of 42,529 UK adults, which measured mental health with a range of pleasant and unpleasant emotional experiences. The interaction effects of living with children and age as well as marital status were tested.

Findings

During the pandemic, individuals who were living with children were more likely to feel hopeful (OR: 1.1) and grateful (OR: 1.163), less likely to feel hopeless (OR: 0.918) and lonely (OR: 0.799), while more likely to feel guilty (OR: 1.185), unprepared (OR: 1.195) and pressurised (OR: 1.14), than those not living with children. More nuanced findings and diverse emotional experiences were also found in people of different age groups and marital statuses.

Originality/value

This study has highlighted that being parents and living with children could be important factors of emotional distress, especially during the special circumstances of the pandemic and lockdowns, drawing on the large-scale national data.

Keywords

Citation

Guo, L., Van Bortel, T., Lombardo, C., Martin, S., Crepaz-Keay, D., McDaid, S., Chantler, O., Thorpe, L., Solomon, S., Morton, A., Kousoulis, A. and Davidson, G. (2025), "Does living with children link to unequal impacts of the pandemic on mental health and emotional experiences?", Journal of Public Mental Health, Vol. ahead-of-print No. ahead-of-print. https://doi.org/10.1108/JPMH-06-2024-0082

Publisher

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Emerald Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2024, Emerald Publishing Limited

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