Symposia
Parenting / Families
Ashley R. Karlovich, PhD
Doctoral Student
University of Miami
Coral Gables, Florida
Ashley R. Karlovich, PhD
Doctoral Student
University of Miami
Coral Gables, Florida
Hannah L. Grassie, BA
Doctoral Student
University of Miami
Coral Gables, Florida
Jonathan S. Comer, Ph.D.
Professor
Florida International University
Miami, FL
Jill Ehrenreich-May, Ph.D.
Professor
University of Miami
Miami, Florida
Angela Evans, Ph.D.
Associate Professor
Brock University
St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada
Lindsay Malloy, Ph.D.
Associate Professor
Ontario Tech University
Downtown Oshawa, Ontario, Canada
Tara S. Peris, Ph.D.
Associate Professor
UCLA
Los Angeles, CA
Donna B. Pincus, Ph.D.
Professor, Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences
Boston University
Boston, Massachusetts
Spencer C. Evans, PhD
Assistant Professor
University of Miami
Coral Gables, Florida
Background: Intolerance of uncertainty (IU) is a transdiagnostic risk factor relevant to psychopathology in both youth and their caregivers. Much research has examined the interplay between a range of caregiver and youth factors in the development and maintenance of youth psychopathology, but the role of caregiver and child IU as predictors of youth mental health outcomes is not as clear.
Methods: Caregivers ages 23 to 59 (M=40.75, SD=6.16, n=390, 93% female) with at least one child ages 6 to 17 (M=10.29, SD=3.56, 48% female) completed surveys at four timepoints, primarily in April and October 2020, to examine family functioning during the COVID-19 pandemic. At baseline, caregivers reported on their own and on their youth’s IU. Across all waves, caregivers completed the Behavior and Feelings Survey and the Affective Reactivity Index to assess youth internalizing, externalizing, and irritability symptoms. Controlling for youth age, gender, and study site, a series of latent growth curve models were estimated to examine trajectories of internalizing, externalizing, and irritability problems, and whether these trajectories differed as a function of youth IU, parent IU, and their interaction.
Results: Youth symptoms remained stable over time. Baseline youth IU predicted higher baseline levels of internalizing, externalizing, and irritability problems (ps< .001), and significantly sharper declines in these problems. Declines may reflect a regression to the mean but do not appear to be clinically meaningful: youth with higher IU at baseline continued to have higher internalizing, externalizing, and irritability problems than their peers 6 months later. Caregiver IU emerged as a significant predictor only of higher latent intercepts for externalizing problems (p=.013). When controlling for youth IU, parent IU was not uniquely associated with other intercepts (ps>.36) or slopes (ps>.37). We did not find evidence for a parent IU x youth IU interaction in predicting any latent growth terms for outcome variables (ps>.08).
Conclusion: Higher youth IU at baseline was associated with higher psychopathology symptoms over time. In contrast, caregiver IU predicted higher externalizing problems in youth, but not internalizing or irritability problems, and there was no evidence for an interplay between caregiver and youth IU. Results provide support for IU as a transdiagnostic mechanism in youth in contributing to the development and maintenance of internalizing, externalizing, and irritability problems in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic.