# 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.

## Key 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.