Identifying Children at Risk from Pandemic Family Situations

We used maternal questionnaire data of the FU waves T5-T9 to define three different groups of pre-pandemic family situations to allow simple identification of children possibly at risk. A child belonged to a specific group if maternal criteria for the group were fulfilled. Table 1 shows how groups of different pre-pandemic family situations were defined.Table 1

Groups of considered pre-pandemic family situations based on maternal questionnaire data of follow-up waves T5-T9

Group #	Group name	Definition	Comment	N girls	N boys
	Overall			300	288
#1	Depression or anxiety symptoms of mother	Mother has at least two times HADS_D score ≥ 8 or two times HADS_A score ≥ 8 in FU-waves T5-T8	Group of children in which mother has either symptoms of depression or anxiety	64	67
#2	Housing density	High housing density for at least two years between T5-T9	Living space per person (m2/person) < median of specific FU-wave: T5 < 32.5, T6 < 32.5, T7 < 32.0, T8 < 32.5, T9 < 33.5	148	131
#3	Working days of mother	Mother works ≥ 5 days per week for at least one year in FU-waves T6-T9	–	150	115

FU follow-up

Maternal pre-pandemic mental health was indexed by the Hospital Anxiety and Depression (HADS)-scale. The HADS questionnaire [44 (link), 45 (link)] is a 14-item screening measure with two subscales assessing symptoms of anxiety and depression. Scores on each subscale range from 0 to 21. A score between 8 and 10 indicates moderate levels of symptoms, and a score between 11 and 21 indicates severe levels of symptoms [46 (link)]. The questionnaire is also validated in the German language and can be used in the general population [46 (link)].