Parental psychological distress associated with COVID-19 outbreak: A large-scale multicenter survey from Turkey.

Bıkmazer, Alperen; Kadak, Muhammed Tayyib; Görmez, Vahdet; Doğan, Uğur; Aslankaya, Zeynep Dilara; Bakır, Fulya; Tarakçıoğlu, Mahmut Cem; Kaya, İlyas; Gümüş, Yusuf Yasin; Esin, İbrahim Selçuk; Karayağmurlu, Ali; Adak, İbrahim; Yaylacı, Ferhat; Güller, Barış; Tanır, Yaşar; Koyuncu, Zehra; Serdengeçti, Nihal; Ermiş, Çağatay; Kaçmaz, Gül Bilgin; Gülşen, Hatice; Doğru, Hicran; Bayati, Mohammed Al; Üstündağ, Büşra; Gökler, Enes; Özyurt, Gonca; Baykara, Burak; Ekinci, Özalp; Başgül, Şaziye Senem; Görmez, Aynur; Emiroğlu, Neslihan İnal; Türkçapar, Hakan; Öztürk, Mücahit

AIMS Pandemics can cause substantial psychological distress; however, we do not know the impact of the COVID-19 related lockdown and mental health burden on the parents of school age children. We aimed to comparatively examine the COVID-19 related the stress and psychological burden of the parents with different occupational, locational, and mental health status related backgrounds. METHODS A large-scale multicenter online survey was completed by the parents (n = 3,278) of children aged 6 to 18 years, parents with different occupational (health care workers-HCW [18.2%] vs. others), geographical (Ä°stanbul [38.2%] vs. others), and psychiatric (child with a mental disorder [37.8%]) backgrounds. RESULTS Multivariable logistic regression analysis showed that being a HCW parent (odds ratio 1.79, p < .001), a mother (odds ratio 1.67, p < .001), and a younger parent (odds ratio 0.98, p = .012); living with an adult with a chronic physical illness (odds ratio 1.38, p < .001), having an acquaintance diagnosed with COVID-19 (odds ratio 1.22, p = .043), positive psychiatric history (odds ratio 1.29, p < .001), and living with a child with moderate or high emotional distress (odds ratio 1.29, p < .001; vs. odds ratio 2.61, p < .001) were independently associated with significant parental distress. CONCLUSIONS Parents report significant psychological distress associated with COVID-19 pandemic and further research is needed to investigate its wider impact including on the whole family unit.