Mental distress of parents with chronic diseases during the COVID-19 pandemic in Australia: A prospective cohort study

OBJECTIVE: To-date there has been limited examination of the experience of the COVID-19 pandemic in parents who suffer from chronic physical conditions. We aimed to 1) examine whether presence of a chronic disease predicts differential latent distress profile memberships, and 2) assess factors that could predict different distress profiles in the sub-group of parents with a chronic disease. METHODS: We used a sample of 1618 parents, from the longitudinal COVID-19 Pandemic Adjustment Study, who completed a measure of mental distress (Depression, Anxiety and Stress Scale) at 13 data collection points. Distress profiles were assessed with the latent profile analysis. RESULTS: We identified four distinct mental distress profile memberships, with the most common membership characterised by very low (48.1%), followed by low (31.9%), moderate (15.7%), and high (4.3%) distress scores. A higher proportion of parents with chronic diseases belonged to profiles experiencing low (34.7% vs. 30.4%), moderate (18.7% vs. 14.1%), and high (5.5% vs. 3.7%) compared to very low (41.2% vs. 51.8%) distress levels than other parents. Residing in Victoria, younger age, lower levels of social support and appraisal of COVID as risk were associated with membership to higher compared to very low distress profiles. CONCLUSION: Our findings highlight the importance of considering chronic disease co-morbidity as an additive risk factor in addressing mental health outcomes of parents during pandemic-like events, since parents with chronic conditions are more vulnerable to experiencing worse mental distress. Future interventions should focus on ways to strengthen social support and provide guidance for managing threat appraisal.