Parenting Stress During the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Longitudinal Study of Japanese Families Based on Children’s Health and Birth Characteristics

BACKGROUND: This study conducted a longitudinal investigation to determine whether parenting stress levels and parental development differ based on specific characteristics of their children, namely allergic diseases, experiences of NICU hospitalization after birth, and those without these characteristics, during the COVID-19 pandemic. METHODS: A longitudinal study was conducted with 1,030 parents with children under six years of age, including 206 parents with children with allergic diseases, 206 with children with NICU hospitalization experience, and 618 in the control group. The final sample consisted of 652 individuals who responded to all three surveys. RESULTS: A comparison among the three groups showed that the allergy group had the highest score for all surveys, whereas the control group had the lowest stress. Nevertheless, a one-way analysis of variance showed significant differences only in the first and third surveys regarding the child aspect. CONCLUSION: As expected, parenting stress and development were consistently negatively correlated. Parenting stress was the highest in the allergy group, followed by the NICU and control groups. We posit that the high levels of parenting stress were due to children’s issues and a decrease in social interactions because of the prolonged COVID-19 pandemic.