Adolescents’ Perceived Changes in Internalizing Symptoms during the COVID-19 Pandemic: The Role of Father Internalizing Symptoms and Parent Support in Germany and Slovakia

Abstract

This preregistered study examined the relation between adolescents’ perceived changes in internalizing symptoms during the COVID-19 pandemic and four different family and peer relationships in two countries. Using a bioecological framework, we interviewed mothers, fathers, and adolescents from 212 families in Germany and Slovakia during the COVID-19 pandemic. In both countries, we found that higher levels of father internalizing symptoms exacerbated the relation between pandemic disruption and increases in pandemic-related adolescent internalizing symptoms. Similarly, parental support buffered the relation between adolescent perceptions of COVID-19 disruption and increases in the adolescents’ internalizing symptoms. Peer support and parental warmth were not associated with changes in adolescent-reported internalizing symptoms during the study period. The fathers’ symptoms of anxiety and depression during stressful life events may impact the parent–child relationship by changing the children’s perceptions of parent–child attachment, which may, in turn, be associated with higher levels of adolescent internalizing symptoms. Higher levels of parental support, however, may have helped protect adolescents from some of the more negative aspects of the pandemic.