Couple and Family Psychology: Research and Practice | 2021
Families in confinement: A pre–post COVID-19 study.
Abstract
The appearance of COVID-19 and consequent containment measures, including the closure of schools and daycare services (decreed on March 13, 2020, in Quebec, Canada), has hit families hard. Overnight, parents had to reconcile their professional activities, including teleworking, with the need to keep or even educate their children at home. Others found themselves unemployed, leading to increased financial stress. Children and adolescents were suddenly deprived of their usual activities and social contacts. All of this experienced in a potentially stressful atmosphere (e.g., fear of contamination) and in a context where access to the social support network and psychosocial services was considerably reduced. Several experts have expressed concerns about this situation (Cluver et al., 2020;Witt et al., 2020), fearing that it could push some families into the zone of psychosocial risk and psychological distress (Berube et al., 2020;Lawson et al., 2020). Indeed, social adversity can negatively affect children’s and parents’ adjustment, due to the pressure it exerts on family processes (Repetti et al., 2002). (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved) © 2021 American Psychological Association