About this srcd poster session

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Panel information
Panel 25. Solicited Content: COVID-19 Related

Abstract

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The COVID-19 pandemic was a period of health-related concerns, financial stress, and adjustments in both parents’ work and youths’ educational and extracurricular routines. In the United States, communities of color also grappled with heightened xenophobia and racism. This dual pandemic placed a burden on youth, with adolescents reporting increases in their anxiety and depressive symptoms during the first two months of the pandemic (i.e., March to May 2020; Gladstone et al., 2021; Hawes et al., 2021) and the persistence of symptoms eight months after the pandemic’s onset (Liu et al., 2022).

Early research indicated that the family played a role in the impact of the pandemic’s restrictions on youth symptomatology. For example, Magson et al. (2021) found that youth reporting more COVID-19 worries or greater conflict with their parents also exhibited increases in their anxiety and depressive symptoms from before the pandemic to two months into the pandemic. However, the period of stay-at-home orders and lockdown also highlighted sources of familial resilience: within a primarily Latinx sample, higher youth-reported family functioning was related to lower youth-reported mental health symptoms during April and May 2020 (Penner et al., 2021). This study examined whether parent-adolescent relationship quality during the pandemic moderated the association of environmental factors (i.e., adolescents’ discrimination experiences, COVID-19 stress, and COVID-19 positive events) with adolescents’ reports of their anxiety and depressive symptoms.

Participants were 135 Latinx adolescents (Mage = 16.00, SD = 1.27, range = 13-18 years; 59% female). Using an online survey, we collected data on adolescents’ discrimination experiences (Krieger et al., 2005), COVID-19 familial stress and positive events (Compas, 2020), and parent-adolescent relationship quality (NRI-RQV; Buhrmester & Furman, 2008) at Time 1 (October 2020 to September 2021). Adolescents also reported on their anxiety (PSF-Anxiety; Irwin et al., 2009) and depressive symptoms (PSF-Depression; Irwin et al., 2009), both concurrently and approximately six months later (M = 28.18 weeks, SD = 4 weeks) at Time 2. Cronbach's alphas were ≥ .70.

Multiple regressions tested associations with youth symptoms concurrently (see Table 1) and six months later (see Table 2). At lower negative RQ, COVID-19 stress was positively associated with concurrent anxiety symptoms; at mean and higher negative RQ, discrimination experiences were positively associated with concurrent anxiety symptoms. At higher positive and negative RQ, more COVID-19 positive events were associated with lower depressive symptoms six months later.

These findings suggest possible distinct mechanisms for the development of anxiety symptoms in adolescence during a stressful geopolitical life event. COVID-19 stress was detrimental for youth anxiety at lower negative RQ, but was unrelated to youth anxiety amidst higher negative RQ; instead, higher conflict and criticism were a more salient predictor for youth anxiety. Higher youth discrimination experiences were also associated with higher youth anxiety amidst higher negative RQ; these negative relationship processes may disrupt familial coping processes in Latinx families (Santiago et al., 2021), contributing to higher concurrent anxiety symptoms. However, supporting prior research (Penner et al., 2021), higher positive parenting paired with higher positive events in the family were associated with lower depressive symptoms over time.

Author information

Author	Role
Frances M. Lobo, Ph.D., The University of Texas at Austin	Presenting author
Casandra Gomez-Alvarado, The University of Texas at Austin	Non-presenting author
Valerie V. Salcido, UNC-Greensboro	Non-presenting author
Gabriela Livas Stein, The University of Texas at Austin	Non-presenting author

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