Comparing Anxiety Levels during the COVID-19 Pandemic among Mothers of Children with and without Neurodevelopmental Disorders

Ivana Bogavac; Ljiljana Jeličić; Jelena Đorđević; Ivana Veselinović; Maša Marisavljević; Miško Subotić

doi:10.3390/children10081292

Comparing Anxiety Levels during the COVID-19 Pandemic among Mothers of Children with and without Neurodevelopmental Disorders

Children (Basel). 2023 Jul 27;10(8):1292. doi: 10.3390/children10081292.

Authors

Ivana Bogavac^{1

2}, Ljiljana Jeličić^{1

2}, Jelena Đorđević^{3

4}, Ivana Veselinović⁵, Maša Marisavljević^{1

2}, Miško Subotić¹

Affiliations

¹ Cognitive Neuroscience Department, Research and Development Institute "Life Activities Advancement Institute", 11000 Belgrade, Serbia.
² Department of Speech, Language and Hearing Sciences, Institute for Experimental Phonetic and Speech Pathology, 11000 Belgrade, Serbia.
³ Department of Psychiatry, Faculty of Medical Sciences, University of Kragujevac, 34000 Kragujevac, Serbia.
⁴ Clinic for Neurology and Psychiatry for Children and Adolescents, 11000 Belgrade, Serbia.
⁵ Department of Defectology-Hearing Disability, Faculty of Special Education and Rehabilitation, University of Belgrade, 11000 Belgrade, Serbia.

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic undoubtedly burdened families, perhaps even more for parents of children with neurodevelopmental disabilities. This research aims to determine the anxiety levels in mothers of children with neurodevelopmental disorders (autism spectrum disorder and specific language impairment) and mothers of typically developed children. The cross-sectional study comprised 280 mothers from the period of the COVID-19 pandemic in Serbia. A confidential survey included main demographic data and the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI). Results revealed that the mean levels of STAI-S and STAI-T are elevated in the observed sample of mothers in the first pandemic wave; the STAI-S level is in the high category (STAI-S mean = 46.69), while STAI-T is in the intermediate category near the cut-off value for the high level (STAI-T mean = 43.04). A statistically significant strong positive correlation between STAI-S and STAI-T is seen (r = 0.802, p = 0.001). GLMM analysis revealed that interactions, rather than independent variables, significantly impact anxiety, implying a complex relationship between the observed variables and STAI. Compared with the results from the pre-pandemic study, our findings reveal that COVID-19 affects mothers of children with and without neurodevelopmental disorders in a complex manner, imposing a need for psychological support, which may positively affect mothers' mental health and the development of their offspring.

Keywords: COVID-19; anxiety; autism spectrum disorder; children; neurodevelopmental disorders; parents; specific language impairment.

Grants and funding

This work was partially supported by the Ministry of Education, Science and Technological Development of the Republic of Serbia within the project “Influence of psychophysiological, sociological, and cultural factors on speech and language in the child population”. This project is realized in cooperation with the Faculty of Medical Sciences, University of Kragujevac, Serbia.