Ginny SprangGinny Sprang
University of Kentucky. United States
Caregiver and Child Mental Health in the Wake of a Pandemic: A Tale of Two Pandemics
How children respond to a pandemic is influenced in part by pre-existing vulnerabilities, contextual issues related to their pandemic experiences, and family functioning. This presentation highlights data from two studies investigating posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in children and parents during pandemic disasters. Study 1 investigates PTSD in an international study of 398 parents with varying disease-containment experiences following the H1N1 who completed the UCLA PTSD Reaction Index-Caregiver Version and the PTSD Checklist Civilian Version. Criteria for PTSD was met in 30% of isolated and quarantined children, and 25% of quarantined and isolated parents. Isolation and quarantined children were more likely to meet the clinical cutoff for PTSD, than those without these experiences (p =.001). Study 2 uses qualitative data from caregivers to conduct a textual analysis of 356 responses about how COVID-19 impacted family functioning. Two coders identified themes and sub-themes using a grounded theory approach (interrater reliability = .93). Themes point to the altered ecological context that defined physical and psychological safety for these families during COVID. These combined findings indicate that pandemics and disease-containment responses may create a condition that families and children experience as traumatic, and highlights important intervention targets to promote recovery.
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Ginny Sprang, Ph.D., is a professor in the College of Medicine, Department of Psychiatry at the University of Kentucky, and executive director of the UK Center on Trauma and Children. She is the Principal Investigator of the SAMHSA funded Category II Secondary Traumatic Stress Innovations and Solutions Center, the Category III Child and Adolescent Trauma Treatment and Training Institute, and Chair Emeritus of the Secondary Traumatic Stress Collaborative group. She has or currently holds national leadership positions in the National Child Traumatic Stress Network as a steering committee member and the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies Special Interest Group Chair for the Terrorism and Disaster committee. Dr. Sprang has over 125 publications on topics such as child trauma, trauma informed care, the commercial sexual exploitation of minors, implementation and sustainability, disaster response and secondary traumatic stress. Her work involves the creation of translational tools, and the development, testing and implementation of evidence-based treatments and practices to treat those exposed to these traumatic experiences.
