COVID-19 Unmasked: trajectories, risk and protective factors for mental health outcomes in young Australian children during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic
Objective Emerging evidence suggests a negative impact of COVID-19 on children’s mental health. The aims of this study were to examine trajectories of mental health in children younger than 6 years as well as risk and protective factors during the first year of the pandemic.Method In a prospective,...
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| Main Authors: | , , , , , , , , , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Taylor & Francis Group
2025-12-01
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| Series: | Australian Journal of Psychology |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/10.1080/00049530.2025.2519037 |
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| Summary: | Objective Emerging evidence suggests a negative impact of COVID-19 on children’s mental health. The aims of this study were to examine trajectories of mental health in children younger than 6 years as well as risk and protective factors during the first year of the pandemic.Method In a prospective, longitudinal online study, data were collected on N = 837 children aged 1 to 5 years in Australia between May and July 2020 and after 3, 6 and 12 months, with n = 257 participating at all 4 timepoints. Individual trajectories ofanxiety, anger/irritability, depressive symptoms and sleep disturbance were analysed using latent growth mixture modelling.Results The results showed that 1 in 4 children experienced moderate to severe symptoms in each problem domain. The overall means for depressive symptoms, anger/irritability, and sleep disturbance decreased while anxiety increased over time. For most outcomes, two individual trajectories were identified: moderate/high-decreasing (26–29%) andlow-increasing. Important predictors were negative COVID-19 related impact on daily life, caregiver distress, lower child positive affect and self-regulation.Conclusions The current results highlight that the pandemic indirectly affected young children’s mental health, especially in the presence of risk factors such as caregiver distress and poor child self-regulation skills. |
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| ISSN: | 0004-9530 1742-9536 |