Family perspectives of COVID-19 research
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(2020) 6:69
COMMENTARY
Open Access
Family perspectives of COVID-19 research Shelley M. Vanderhout1, Catherine S. Birken2, Peter Wong3, Sarah Kelleher4, Shannon Weir4 and Jonathon L. Maguire1,5*
Abstract Background: The COVID-19 pandemic has uniquely affected children and families by disrupting routines, changing relationships and roles, and altering usual child care, school and recreational activities. Understanding the way families experience these changes from parents’ perspectives may help to guide research on the effects of COVID19 among children. Main body: As a multidisciplinary team of child health researchers, we assembled a group of nine parents to identify concerns, raise questions, and voice perspectives to inform COVID-19 research for children and families. Parents provided a range of insightful perspectives, ideas for research questions, and reflections on their experiences during the pandemic. Conclusion: Including parents as partners in early stages of COVID-19 research helped determine priorities, led to more feasible data collection methods, and hopefully has improved the relevance, applicability and value of research findings to parents and children. Keywords: COVID-19, Children, Families
Plain English summary Understanding the physical, mental, and emotional impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic for children and families will help to guide approaches to support families and children during the pandemic and after. As a team of child health researchers in Toronto, Canada, we assembled a group of parents and clinician researchers during the COVID-19 pandemic to identify concerns, raise questions, and voice perspectives to inform COVID-19 research for children and families. Parents were eager to share their experience of shifting roles, priorities, and routines during the pandemic, and were instrumental in guiding research priorities and methods to understand of the effects of COVID-19 on families. First-hand experience that parents have in navigating the COVID-19 pandemic with their families contributed * Correspondence: [email protected] 1 Li Ka Shing Knowledge Institute of St. Michael’s Hospital, Unity Health Toronto, 209 Victoria St, Toronto, ON M5B 1T8, Canada 5 Toronto, Canada Full list of author information is available at the end of the article
to collaborative relationships between researchers and research participants, helped orient research about COVID-19 in children around family priorities, and offered valuable perspectives for the development of guidelines for safe return to school and childcare. Partnerships between researchers and families in designing and delivering COVID-19 research may lead to a better understanding of how health research can best support children and their families during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Background Children and families have been uniquely affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. While children appear to experience milder symptoms from COVID-19 infection than older individuals [1], sudden changes in routines, resources, and relationships as a result o
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