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The recent coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has pushed governments all over the world to take extraordinary and severe measures to fight the virus. Despite the effectiveness of measures such as lockdowns and social distancing to restrain spreading the virus, there may be a long-lasting negative impact on individuals’ mental health. Also, as a result of the imposed restrictions, many youths and their parents were forced to spend most of their time at home and less time with friends, potentially limiting the possibilities for support from the informal (i.e., social) and formal (i.e., professional) networks. The imposed restrictions have had a negative effect on different aspects of mental health (Brooks et al., 2020), which is mediated by increased stress (Achterberg et al., 2021). Furthermore, people who already were vulnerable before the pandemic suffered more (Kim & Laurence, 2020). Yet, to our knowledge no research has been published on the mental health of multi-problem families during the COVID-19 pandemic, despite that these families are at greater risk for problems on several life domains, including mental health problems, financial problems, and social network problems (Bodden & Deković, 2016). Thus, research is warranted on the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on the mental health of youth and parents from multi-problem families. Social support can protect individuals from developing problems in stressful situations, and is, therefore, considered an important protective factor during the COVID-19 pandemic (Grey et al., 2020). However, multi-problem families tend to have unstable informal (i.e., natural) support networks (Sousa, 2005) and often experience interrupted and fragmented formal (i.e., professional) support (Sousa & Eusébio, 2007), making it more likely that they experience low levels of support during a stressful time such as a pandemic. In this study we will examine mental health (resilience and wellbeing) and experienced formal and informal support in youth and parents of multi-problem families during the COVID-19 pandemic. More specifically, we will examine whether pandemic related stress and formal and informal support are related to mental health during the pandemic. Also, we will examine whether formal and informal support moderate the link between pandemic related stress and mental health, to investigate whether formal and informal support serve as protective factors minimizing the potential negative effects of the pandemic on mental health. We aim to give deeper insight into the mental wellbeing of the vulnerable population of multi-problem families during the pandemic. These results can be used to inform policy makers and mental health care professionals about the possible effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on the mental wellbeing of multi-problem families. |
