Because the COVID‐19 pandemic has been implicated in increased mental health concerns for families of low income, we aimed to describe maternal perspectives about the pandemic's impact on their kindergartener's mental health during the 2020–2021 school year. We conducted 22 in‐depth, semi‐structured interviews with U.S. mothers with low income who had kindergarten‐age children (50% male and 50% female). All participants were female, ranging in age from 24 to 44 years, and reported the following ethnic/racial identities: non‐Hispanic Black or African American (41%), Hispanic of any race (36%) and non‐Hispanic, White (23%). With a team comprising multiple researchers from varied disciplines (e.g., medicine, education and public health) our analytic process used an iterative approach for developing and revising codes and themes until we reached thematic saturation. Most mothers described negative impacts on social, behavioural and emotional aspects of mental health. Some described positive social impacts, including strengthened family relationships. Mothers described no positive changes to behavioural or emotional aspects of mental health. Maternal perspectives suggest the importance of prioritising access to screening and treating mental health needs to support children's kindergarten transition, mitigate pandemic impacts and plan for future disruptions.

中文翻译：

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COVID-19 大流行对幼儿园儿童心理健康的影响：美国低收入母亲观点的定性研究


由于 COVID-19 大流行与低收入家庭的心理健康担忧增加有关，因此我们旨在描述母亲对 2020-2021 学年大流行对幼儿园儿童心理健康影响的看法。我们对有幼儿园年龄孩子的美国低收入母亲 （50% 为男性，50% 为女性） 进行了 22 次深入的半结构化访谈。所有参与者均为女性，年龄从 24 岁到 44 岁不等，并报告了以下民族/种族身份：非西班牙裔黑人或非裔美国人 （41%）、任何种族的西班牙裔 （36%） 和非西班牙裔白人 （23%）。我们的团队由来自不同学科（例如医学、教育和公共卫生）的多名研究人员组成，我们的分析过程使用迭代方法来开发和修改代码和主题，直到我们达到主题饱和。大多数母亲描述了对心理健康的社会、行为和情感方面的负面影响。一些人描述了积极的社会影响，包括加强家庭关系。母亲们描述心理健康的行为或情绪方面没有积极的变化。母亲的观点表明，优先获得筛查和治疗心理健康需求以支持儿童的幼儿园过渡、减轻大流行的影响并为未来的中断做准备的重要性。