The relationships between the family impact and distress of the coronavirus disease-19 pandemic, parent insomnia, infant temperamental negative affectivity, and parent-reported infant sleep: a path analysis

TL;DR

This study explores how the stress of the COVID-19 pandemic affects infant sleep through parental and infant emotional factors.

Contribution

It identifies a novel indirect relationship between pandemic distress and infant sleep via infant negative affectivity.

Findings

Pandemic distress was not directly related to infant sleep but was indirectly linked through infant negative affectivity.

Higher pandemic distress was associated with worse parent-reported infant sleep via increased infant negative affectivity.

The study highlights the importance of addressing family stress during crises to improve infant sleep outcomes.

Abstract

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic impact on infant sleep (IS) is understudied. The purpose of this study was to examine the relationships between family impact and distress from COVID-19 pandemic stressors, parental insomnia symptoms, infant temperamental negative affectivity, and parent-reported IS.

Parents from the Phoenix metropolitan area with a full-term healthy infant (<1 year) were recruited from February 27, 2021, to August 7, 2021. A sample of 70 parents (baby age 5.5 ± 3.5 months; parental age: 31.7 ± 5.0 years) completed the COVID-19 Exposure and Family Impact Survey (CEFIS) Impact and Distress scales, the Insomnia Severity Index (ISI), the Infant Behavioral Questionnaire-Revised Negative Affectivity subscale (IBQ-R-NA), and the Brief Infant Sleep Questionnaire-Revised (BISQ-R). Based on the transactional model of IS, path analyses were conducted to identify the direct effect of CEFIS scores and the indirect effects of parental ISI and infant IBQ-R-NA scores on BISQ-R scores.

The parent sample was predominantly female (94.3%), white (72.9%), and married or in a domestic partnership (98.6%). Although COVID-19 pandemic impact and distress were not directly related to parent-reported IS, pandemic distress was negatively related to parent-reported IS indirectly through infant negative affectivity, including BISQ-R total score (β = −0.14, 95% CI [−0.32, −0.01]) and IS subscale score (β = −0.12, 95% CI [−0.27, −0.01]).

Heightened COVID-19 pandemic family distress was related to poorer parent-reported IS through greater parent-reported infant negative affectivity, suggesting the importance of addressing family stress and emotional regulation during crises.

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