Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2-14-2024

Identifier

DOI: 10.3389/fpsyt.2024.1342504; PMCID: PMC10899320

Abstract

BACKGROUND: To control the spread of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), many jurisdictions throughout the world enacted public health measures that had vast socio-economic implications. In emergency situations, families of children with developmental disabilities (DDs), including autism, may experience increased difficulty accessing therapies, economic hardship, and caregiver stress, with the potential to exacerbate autism symptoms. Yet, limited research exists on the economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on families of children with autism or another DD compared to families of children from the general population.

OBJECTIVES: To assess impact of the COVID-19 pandemic related to parental employment and economic difficulties in families of children with autism, another DD, and in the general population, considering potential modification by socioeconomic disadvantage before the pandemic and levels of child behavioral and emotional problems.

METHODS: The Study to Explore Early Development (SEED) is a multi-site, multi-phase, case-control study of young children with autism or another DD as compared to a population comparison group (POP). During January-July 2021, a COVID-19 Impact Assessment Questionnaire was sent to eligible participants (n=1,789) who had enrolled in SEED Phase 3 from September 2017-March 2020. Parents completed a questionnaire on impacts of the pandemic in 2020 and completed the Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL) to measure behavioral and emotional health of their child during this time. Multiple logistic regression models were built for employment reduction, increased remote work, difficulty paying bills, or fear of losing their home. Covariates include group status (autism, DD, POP), household income at enrollment, child's race and ethnicity, and binary CBCL Total Problems T-score (≥60). Unadjusted and adjusted odds ratios (aOR) and 95% confidence intervals (CI) were calculated.

RESULTS: The study included 274 children with autism, 368 children with another DD, and 385 POP children. The mean age of 6.1 years (standard deviation, 0.8) at the COVID-19 Impact Assessment did not differ between study groups. Parents of children with autism were less likely to transition to remote work (aOR [95% CI] = 0.6 [0.4, 1.0]) and more likely to report difficulty paying bills during the pandemic (1.8 [1.2, 2.9]) relative to parents of POP children. Lower income was associated with greater employment reduction, difficulty paying bills, and fear of losing their home, but inversely associated with transitioning to remote work. Parents of non-Hispanic (NH) Black children experienced greater employment reduction compared to parents of NH White children (1.9 [1.1, 3.0]). Parents from racial and ethnic minority groups were more likely to experience difficulty paying bills and fear losing their home, relative to NH White parents. Caregivers of children with CBCL scores in the clinical range were more likely to fear losing their home (2.1 [1.3, 3.4]).

CONCLUSION: These findings suggest that families of children with autism, families of lower socio-economic status, and families of racial and ethnic minority groups experienced fewer work flexibilities and greater financial distress during the pandemic. Future research can be used to assess if these impacts are sustained over time.

Journal Title

Front Psychiatry

Volume

15

First Page

1342504

Last Page

1342504

Keywords

COVID-19; COVID-19 pandemic impacts; autism spectrum disorder; family impacts; neurodevelopmental disorder

Comments

Grants and funding

The author(s) declare financial support was received for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. Implementation of SEED was supported by five cooperative agreements from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: Cooperative Agreement Number U01DD001210, The Regents of the University of Colorado; Cooperative Agreement Number U01DD001214 and 1U01DD001209, Johns Hopkins University; Cooperative Agreement Number U01DD001205, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; Cooperative Agreement Number U01DD001216, Washington University; and Cooperative Agreement Number U01DD001215, University of Wisconsin System. CDC collaborated in the conduct of the research and collection of data, and in the preparation of the article, including interpretation of data, writing of the report, and in the decision to submit the article for publication. This study was supported in part by a core grant to the Waisman Center from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (P50HD105353). This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms. Publisher's Link: https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychiatry/articles/10.3389/fpsyt.2024.1342504/full

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