ORCID Profile
0000-0002-5758-441X
Current Organisation
Deakin University
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Publisher: Center for Open Science
Date: 26-03-2021
Abstract: Objective: To control a second-wave COVID-19 outbreak, the state of Victoria in Australia experienced one of the world’s first long and strict lockdowns over July-October 2020, while the rest of Australia experienced ‘COVID-normal’ with minimal restrictions. We (1) investigate trajectories of parent/child mental health outcomes and (2) identify baseline demographic, in idual, and COVID-19-related factors associated with mental health trajectories. Method: Online community s le of 1,877 Australian parents with rapid repeated assessment over 10 time-points over April-October, 2020. Measures assessed parent mental health (Depression, Anxiety and Stress Scales-21) child depression symptoms (13-item Short Mood and Feelings Questionnaire) and child anxiety symptoms (four-items from Brief Spence Children’s Anxiety Scale).Results: Mental health trajectories shadowed COVID-19 infection rates. Victorians reported a large peak in mental health symptoms at the time of the second-wave lockdown compared to other states. Key baseline predictors, including parent and child loneliness (standardized regression coefficient [β]=·09-·39), parent/child diagnoses (β=·11-·22), couple conflict (β=·09-·19), and COVID-19 stressors, such as worry/concern about COVID-19, illness, and loss of job (β=·07-·22), predicted elevated trajectories. Effects of predictors on parent and child mental health trajectories are illustrated in an online interactive app for readers (lingtax.shinyapps.io/CPAS_trend/).Conclusion: Our findings provide evidence of worse trajectories of parent and child mental health symptoms associated with strict, sustained, COVID-19 lockdown in Victoria, compared to non-locked states in the rest of Australia. We identified several baseline factors that may be useful in detecting high risk families who are likely to require additional support early on in future lockdowns.
Publisher: Public Library of Science (PLoS)
Date: 02-02-2022
DOI: 10.1371/JOURNAL.PONE.0262529
Abstract: Parenting interventions offer an evidence-based method for the prevention and early intervention of child mental health problems, but to-date their population-level effectiveness has been limited by poor reach and engagement, particularly for fathers, working mothers, and disadvantaged families. Tailoring intervention content to parents’ context offers the potential to enhance parent engagement and learning by increasing relevance of content to parents’ daily experiences. However, this approach requires a detailed understanding of the common parenting situations and issues that parents face day-to-day, which is currently lacking. We sought to identify the most common parenting situations discussed by parents on parenting-specific forums of the free online discussion forum, Reddit. We aimed to understand perspectives from both mothers and fathers, and thus retrieved publicly available data from r/Daddit and r/Mommit. We used latent Dirichlet allocation to identify the 10 most common topics discussed in the Reddit posts, and completed a manual text analysis to summarize the parenting situations (defined as involving a parent and their child aged 0–18 years, and describing a potential/actual issue). We retrieved 340 (r/Daddit) and 578 (r/Mommit) original posts. A model with 31 latent Dirichlet allocation topics was best fitting, and 24 topics included posts that met our inclusion criteria for manual review. We identified 45 unique but broadly defined parenting situations. The majority of parenting situations were focused on basic childcare situations relating to eating, sleeping, routines, sickness, and toilet training or related to how to respond to child negative emotions or difficult behavior. Most situations were discussed in relation to infant or toddler aged children, and there was high consistency in the themes raised in r/Daddit and r/Mommit. Our results offer potential to tailor parenting interventions in a meaningful way, creating opportunities to develop content and resources that are directly relevant to parents’ lived experiences.
Publisher: Center for Open Science
Date: 13-01-2022
Abstract: The current study evaluated the theoretical alignment between the Coping with Children's Negative Emotion Scale (CCNES), a commonly used measure to asses parent emotion socialization, and Gottman, Katz and Hooven’s meta-emotion theory. Further, we created an 18-item short-form (3 emotion coaching subscales, 3 emotion dismissing subscales), and 6-item brief short-form (emotion coaching subscale and emotion dismissing subscale) with acceptable psychometric properties
Publisher: SAGE Publications
Date: 21-12-2021
DOI: 10.1177/00048674211065365
Abstract: To control a second-wave COVID-19 outbreak, the state of Victoria in Australia experienced one of the world’s first long and strict lockdowns over July–October 2020, while the rest of Australia experienced ‘COVID-normal’ with minimal restrictions. We (1) investigate trajectories of parent/child mental health outcomes in Victoria vs non-Victoria and (2) identify baseline demographic, in idual and COVID-19-related factors associated with mental health trajectories. Online community s le of 2004 Australian parents with rapid repeated assessment over 14 time-points over April 2020 to May 2021. Measures assessed parent mental health (Depression, Anxiety and Stress Scales-21), child depression symptoms (13-item Short Mood and Feelings Questionnaire) and child anxiety symptoms (four items from Brief Spence Children’s Anxiety Scale). Mental health trajectories shadowed COVID-19 infection rates. Victorians reported a peak in mental health symptoms at the time of the second-wave lockdown compared to other states. Key baseline predictors, including parent and child loneliness (standardized regression coefficient [β] = 0.09–0.46), parent/child diagnoses (β = 0.07–0.21), couple conflict (β = 0.07–0.18) and COVID-19 stressors, such as worry/concern about COVID-19, illness and loss of job (β = 0.12–0.15), predicted elevated trajectories. Effects of predictors on parent and child mental health trajectories are illustrated in an online interactive app for readers ( lingtax.shinyapps.io/CPAS_trend/ ). Our findings provide evidence of worse trajectories of parent and child mental health symptoms at a time coinciding with a second COVID-19 outbreak involving strict lockdown in Victoria, compared to non-locked states in Australia. We identified several baseline factors that may be useful in detecting high-risk families who are likely to require additional support early on in future lockdowns.
Publisher: Center for Open Science
Date: 27-10-2020
Abstract: Objectives: To examine the subjective wellbeing of Australian parents raising children and adolescents (0-18 years) during ‘stage three’ COVID-19 restrictions (April 2020), in comparison with subjective wellbeing in parents assessed over an 18-year period prior to the pandemic. We also aimed to examine socio-demographic and COVID-19 predictors of subjective wellbeing during the pandemic.Methods: Cross-sectional data were from: (1) the COVID-19 Pandemic Adjustment Survey (CPAS, N=2,365 parents of a child 0-18 years, 8-28th April, 2020) and, (2) a pre-pandemic database bringing together over 18-years of national data on subjective wellbeing (N=17,529 adults living with children, collected in annual surveys over 2002-2019). Results: Levels of subjective wellbeing during the pandemic were considerably lower than ratings prior to the pandemic (Personal Wellbeing Index, mean [SD]=65.3 [17.0] compared to [SD]=75.8 [11.9], p& .001). Within the pandemic data, subjective wellbeing was lower in parents with low education, language other-than-English, receiving income assistance (i.e., a government benefit), single parents, and young parents. Subjective wellbeing was also lower in fathers, parents raising a child with a neurodevelopmental condition, parents with physical or mental health problems, and parents reporting COVID-related stressors, such as employment changes, financial strain, negative feelings/attributions about COVID-19, and supervising children while working-from-home. Unexpectedly, parent engagement with news media about the pandemic was associated with higher subjective wellbeing. Conclusion: Subjective wellbeing in parents raising children aged 0-18 years appears to be disproportionately impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic and associated social restrictions in Australia. Specific at-risk groups, for which government intervention may be warranted, include parents in socially disadvantaged contexts, parents with pre-existing mental health difficulties, and parents facing significant COVID-19 related work changes.
Publisher: Center for Open Science
Date: 03-03-2023
Abstract: This is a preprint of the manuscript titled "Profiles of Parents’ Emotion Socialization Within a Multinational S le of Parents". This manuscript has been submitted for peer review at a journal, but not yet accepted (as of March 2023). Figures relevant to the manuscript are available in a zip file, in the supplementary materials.
Publisher: Center for Open Science
Date: 11-06-2020
Abstract: Background: Parenting interventions offer an evidence-based method for the prevention and early intervention of child mental health problems, but to-date their population-level effectiveness has been limited by poor reach and engagement, particularly for fathers, working mothers, and disadvantaged families. Internationally, there has been a call for more sensitive intervention frameworks that better recognize parents’ differences and match support accordingly. Tailoring intervention content to parents’ context (i.e., to common parenting situations) offers potential to enhance parent engagement and learning by increasing relevance of content to parents’ daily experiences. However, this approach requires a detailed understanding of the common parenting situations and issues that parents face day-to-day, which is currently lacking.Objective: We sought to identify the most common parenting situations discussed by parents on parenting-specific forums of the free online discussion forum, Reddit, one of the most popular social media platforms in the world. We aimed to understand perspectives from both mothers and fathers, and therefore retrieved publicly available data from two parenting-specific ‘subreddits’ (r/Daddit r/Mommit).Methods: We used latent Dirichlet allocation (LDA) to identify the most common topics discussed in the Reddit posts. Once topics were identified, we completed a manual text analysis of the 10 posts ranked as most relevant to each topic, and summarized the parenting situations that were described. Our pre-specified definition of a parenting situation required that the post involve a parent and their child aged 0-18 years and describe a potential or actual difficulty or issue.Results: We retrieved 340 (r/Daddit) and 578 (r/Mommit) original posts. A model with 31 LDA topics was found to be the best fitting model. Of these, 24 topics included posts that met our inclusion criteria for manual review. From these, we identified 45 unique but broadly-defined parenting situations. The majority of parenting situations were either focused on basic childcare situations relating to eating, sleeping, routines, sickness and toilet training or related to how to respond to child negative emotions or difficult behavior. Most situations were discussed in relation to infant or toddler age children, and on the whole, there was a high level of consistency in the themes raised in r/Daddit and r/Mommit.Conclusions: Our text analysis of the r/Daddit and r/Mommit posts highlighted two overarching themes in topics commonly discussed in online parenting forums basic childcare, and management of child emotions and behavior. Our results offer potential to tailor parenting interventions in a meaningful way, creating opportunities to develop content and resources that are directly relevant to parents’ lived experiences.
Publisher: Center for Open Science
Date: 27-04-2020
Abstract: Background: The COVID-19 pandemic presents significant risks to the mental health and wellbeing of Australian families. Employment and economic uncertainty, chronic stress, anxiety, and social isolation are likely to have negative impacts on parent mental health, couple and family relationships, as well as child health and development. Objective: This study aims to: (1) provide timely information on the mental health impacts of the emerging COVID-19 crisis in a close to representative s le of Australian parents and children (0-18 years) (2) identify adults and families most at risk of poor mental health outcomes and, (3) identify factors to target through clinical and public health intervention to reduce risk. Specifically, this study will investigate the extent to which the COVID-19 pandemic is associated with increased risk for parents’ mental health, lower wellbeing, loneliness, and alcohol use parent-parent and parent-child relationships (both verbal and physical) and child and adolescent mental health problems. Methods: The study aims to recruit a close to representative s le of at least 2,000 adults aged 18 years and over living in Australia who are parents of a child 0-4 years (early childhood, N=400) 5-12 years (primary school N=800) and 13-18 years (secondary school, N=800). The design will be a longitudinal cohort study using an online recruitment methodology. Participants will be invited to complete an online baseline self-report survey (20 minutes) followed by a series of shorter online surveys (10 minutes) scheduled every two weeks for the duration of the COVID-19 pandemic (i.e., estimated to be 14 surveys over 6 months). Results: The study will employ post stratification weights to address differences between the final s le and the national population in geographic communities across Australia. Associations will be analyzed using multilevel modeling with time-variant and time-invariant predictors of change in trajectory over the testing period. Conclusions: This study will provide timely information on the mental health impacts of the COVID-19 crisis on parents and children in Australia identify communities, parents, families, and children most at risk of poor outcomes and, identify potential factors to address in clinical and public health interventions to reduce risk.
Publisher: SAGE Publications
Date: 11-2023
DOI: 10.1177/10731911221126919
Abstract: The Coping with Children's Negative Emotions Scale (CCNES) is a widely used measure of parent emotion socialization however, it is a lengthy measure and it is unclear whether all items are appropriately aligned with, and fully capture, the underlying constructs. We aimed to examine content validity of the CCNES, evaluate the theoretical alignment between the CCNES and Gottman, Katz and Hooven's meta-emotion theory, and develop two short-forms. Participants were parents of children aged 4 to 10 years (
Publisher: BMJ
Date: 10-2020
DOI: 10.1136/BMJOPEN-2020-038124
Abstract: Parents shape child emotional competence and mental health via their beliefs about children’s emotions, emotion-related parenting, the emotional climate of the family and by modelling emotion regulation skills. However, much of the research evidence to date has been based on small s les with mothers of primary school-aged children. Further research is needed to elucidate the direction and timing of associations for mothers and fathers artners across different stages of child development. The Child and Parent Emotion Study (CAPES) aims to examine longitudinal associations between parent emotion socialisation, child emotion regulation and socioemotional adjustment at four time points from pregnancy to age 12 years. CAPES will investigate the moderating role of parent gender, child temperament and gender, and family background. CAPES recruited 2063 current parents from six English-speaking countries of a child 0–9 years and 273 prospective parents (ie, women/their partners pregnant with their first child) in 2018–2019. Participants will complete a 20–30 min online survey at four time points 12 months apart, to be completed in December 2022. Measures include validated parent-report tools assessing parent emotion socialisation (ie, parent beliefs, the family emotional climate, supportive parenting and parent emotion regulation) and age-sensitive measures of child outcomes (ie, emotion regulation and socioemotional adjustment). Analyses will use mixed-effects regression to simultaneously assess associations over three time-point transitions (ie, T1 to T2 T2 to T3 T3 to T4), with exposure variables lagged to estimate how past factors predict outcomes 12 months later. Ethics approval was granted by the Deakin University Human Research Ethics Committee and the Deakin University Faculty of Health Human Research Ethics Committee. We will disseminate results through conferences and open access publications. We will invite parent end users to co-develop our dissemination strategy, and discuss the interpretation of key findings prior to publication. Protocol pre-registration: DOI 10.17605/OSF.IO/NGWUY.
Publisher: Center for Open Science
Date: 30-09-2020
Abstract: The COVID-19 pandemic presents significant risks to the mental health and wellbeing of families. This study aimed to examine: (1) patterns of parent and child (0–18 years) mental health, parent substance use, couple conflict, parenting practices, and family functioning during COVID-19 compared to pre-pandemic data and (2) associations between parent, child, and family outcomes during the pandemic and both pre-existing risk factors and COVID-19 stressors. Participants were Australian mothers (81%) and fathers aged 18 years and over who were parents of a child 0–18 years (N=2,365). Parents completed an online self-report survey assessing mental health, substance use, couple conflict, parenting, and family functioning during ‘stage three’ COVID-19 restrictions in April 2020. Data were compared to pre-pandemic data from four Australian population-based cohorts. Compared to pre-pandemic estimates, during the pandemic period parents reported higher rates of parent mental health symptoms (Cohen’s d=0.26-.81, all p& .001), higher parenting irritability (d=0.17-.46, all p& .001), lower family positive expressiveness (d=-0.18, p& .001), and higher alcohol consumption (22% vs 12% drinking four or more days per week, p& .001). In multivariable analyses, pre-existing financial deprivation and COVID-19 stressors were associated with greater severity in parent and child mental health symptoms, parent emotion dysregulation, parenting irritability, couple conflict and family positive/negative expressiveness. Parents and children with pre-existing mental health conditions had elevated difficulties during the pandemic across most domains. Our data suggest wide-ranging, detrimental family impacts associated with the COVID-19 pandemic and support policy actions to assist families with financial supports, leave entitlements, and social housing.
Publisher: Frontiers Media SA
Date: 31-08-2020
No related grants have been discovered for Tomer Berkowitz.