Social cohesion helps parents through a pandemic
During the Covid-19 pandemic, parental mental health suffered particularly badly. Researchers have now found that parents fared better if they rated the social cohesion in their environment as strong during the pandemic. Not only were they less affected by pandemic stress, but the risk of depression and other mental illnesses decreased. This was shown by analyses using data from the “Living in Germany” study.
However, if parents already rated social cohesion as high before the pandemic, this did not significantly protect them from stress during the pandemic. Thus, the authors recommend taking measures to strengthen social cohesion, especially during a pandemic, in order to relieve parents in particular.