text:
Criteria for Publication
Editor Center
Resources for Editors
Discover a faster, simpler path to publishing in a high-quality journal. PLOS ONE promises fair, rigorous peer review, broad scope, and wide readership – a perfect fit for your research every time.
Learn More Submit Now
Why Publish with PLOS ONE
Staff Editors
Browse Subject Areas
Click through the PLOS taxonomy to find articles in your field.
Does the COVID-19 pandemic impact parents' and adolescents' well-being? An EMA-study on daily affect and parenting
Loes H. C. Janssen ,
Contributed equally to this work with: Loes H. C. Janssen, Marie-Louise J. Kullberg
Roles Conceptualization, Data curation, Formal analysis, Investigation, Methodology, Visualization, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing
* E-mail: l.h.c.janssen@fsw.leidenuniv.nl
¶‡ These authors share first authorship on this work.
Affiliations Department of Clinical Psychology, Institute of Psychology, Leiden University, Leiden, The Netherlands, Leiden Institute for Brain and Cognition (LIBC), Leiden University, Leiden, The Netherlands
Marie-Louise J. Kullberg ,
Affiliation Department of Clinical Psychology, Institute of Psychology, Leiden University, Leiden, The Netherlands
Bart Verkuil,
Roles Conceptualization, Methodology, Supervision, Writing – review & editing
Noa van Zwieten,
Roles Conceptualization, Writing – review & editing
Mirjam C. M. Wever,
Lisanne A. E. M. van Houtum,
Wilma G. M. Wentholt,
Bernet M. Elzinga
Roles Conceptualization, Funding acquisition, Project administration, Supervision, Writing – review & editing
Loes H. C. Janssen,
Marie-Louise J. Kullberg,
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0240962
Loes H. C. Janssen Marie-Louise J. Kullberg ... Bernet M. Elzinga
Due to the COVID- 19 outbreak in the Netherlands (March 2020) and the associated social distancing measures, families were enforced to stay at home as much as possible. Adolescents and their families may be particularly affected by this enforced proximity, as adolescents strive to become more independent. Yet, whether these measures impact emotional well-being in families with adolescents has not been examined. In this ecological momentary assessment study, we investigated if the COVID-19 pandemic affected positive and negative affect of parents and adolescents and parenting behaviors (warmth and criticism). Additionally, we examined possible explanations for the hypothesized changes in affect and parenting. To do so, we compared daily reports on affect and parenting that were gathered during two periods of 14 consecutive days, once before the COVID-19 pandemic (2018–2019) and once during the COVID-19 pandemic. Multilevel analyses showed that only parents' negative affect increased as compared to the period before the pandemic, whereas this was not the case for adolescents' negative affect, positive affect and parenting behaviors (from both the adolescent and parent perspective). In general, intolerance of uncertainty was linked to adolescents' and parents' negative affect and adolescents' positive affect. However, Intolerance of uncertainty, nor any pandemic related characteristics (i.e. living surface, income, relatives with COVID-19, hours of working at home, helping children with school and contact with COVID-19 patients at work) were linked to the increase of parents' negative affect during COVID-19. It can be concluded that on average, our sample (consisting of relatively healthy parents and adolescents) seems to deal fairly well with the circumstances. The substantial heterogeneity in the data however, also suggest that whether or not parents and adolescents experience (emotional) problems can vary from household to household. Implications for researchers, mental health care professionals and policy makers are discussed.
Citation: Janssen LHC, Kullberg M-LJ, Verkuil B, van Zwieten N, Wever MCM, van Houtum LAEM, et al. (2020) Does the COVID-19 pandemic impact parents' and adolescents' well-being? An EMA-study on daily affect and parenting. PLoS ONE 15(10): e0240962. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0240962
Editor: Silvia Cimino, Sapienza - University of Roma, Italy, ITALY
Received: July 1, 2020; Accepted: October 6, 2020; Published: October 16, 2020
Copyright: © 2020 Janssen et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Data Availability: The data underlying the results presented in the study are available (uploaded on 22th of September 2020) from the public repository Electronic Archiving System (EASY) of the Data Archiving and Networked Services (DANS) under the following link: https://doi.org/10.17026/dans-x7n-p9n9.
Funding: The study was supported by a personal research grant from the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research awarded to Bernet Elzinga (VICI; Unravelling the Impact of Emotional Maltreatment on the Developing Brain 453-15-006). https://www.nwo.nl/. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.
Abbreviations: AIC, Akaike information criterion; B, Unstandardized beta; BIC, Bayesian information criterion; COVID-19, Coronavirus disease 2019; df, Degrees of freedom; EMA, Ecological momentary assessment; fMRI, Functional magnetic resonance imaging; ICC, Intra-class correlation coefficient; IU, Intolerance of uncertainty; IUS, Intolerance of uncertainty scale; K-SADS-PL, Kiddie-schedule for affective disorders and schizophrenia—present and lifetime version; LL, Log-likelihood; LUMC, Leiden university medical center; M, Mean; ML, Maximum likelihood; p, p-value; PANAS-C, Positive and negative affect schedule for children; PHQ-9, Patent health questionnaire; RE-PAIR, Relations and emotions in parent-adolescent interaction research; SD, Standard deviation; SE, Standard error; t, T-statistic
Since March 2020, the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is referred to as a pandemic by the World Health Organization [1]. To slow the spread of COVID-19, national governments have taken radical measures to minimize social interactions by closing public places, demanding people to keep physical distance and stay at home and—in some countries—by enforcing 'full lockdown'. In the Netherlands, at March 15th 2020, measures of social distancing enforced all Dutch citizens to stay home and work remotely as much as possible, public spaces (e.g. schools, offices, parts of public transport, theatres) were closed and public gatherings were prohibited (see Fig 1 for a timeline). These measures of social distancing (a so-called 'lockdown') created drastic changes in daily social life; distinct domains such as family life, school, and work suddenly coincided and families faced an unforeseen increase in hours spent together under the same roof. Adolescents and their families may be particularly affected by this enforced proximity, as adolescents strive to become independent and focus more on socializing and spending time with friends rather than with their families [2, 3]. To that end, this study aimed to investigate well-being of adolescents and their parents and parenting behaviors during the COVID-19 pandemic and explored daily difficulties and helpful activities during the COVID-19 pandemic linked to their well-being.
Fig 1. Timeline of study period.
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0240962.g001
For some families, spending more time together during a lockdown may bring family members closer towards each other and foster a sense of well-being. However, several factors that are emblematic for the COVID-19 crisis, such as financial insecurity, concerns about own and others' health, uncertainty about quarantine duration, lack of social and physical activities, and boredom have all frequently been shown to negatively affect a person's mood and mental well-being [4–8]. Moreover, parents and adolescents may also experience stress because they are faced with more daily hassles (e.g. a suboptimal work or school environment) and additional tasks (e.g. parents homeschooling their children or caring for significant others). Previous studies have shown that the impact of these quarantine related factors on mental health outcomes (e.g. depressive symptoms, anxiety, and PTSD) can be wide-ranging, substantial and long-lasting (see review of Brooks et al. [9]). As a consequence, these confinements may also lead to more tension, irritability, family conflicts, and at worse, domestic violence or child abuse [10].
One of the key questions that have been raised by governmental agencies and health care workers is to what extent the COVID-19 pandemic and the associated distancing measures affect families' well-being and parenting behaviors. In this study, Dutch adolescents and their parents filled in 14 days of ecological momentary assessments (EMA; [11]) twice, before the COVID-19 outbreak (2018–2019) and also during the COVID-19 pandemic (14–28 April 2020). In addition, we asked parents and adolescents about daily difficulties and helpful activities during the COVID-19 pandemic that possibly influenced their affect in positive and negative ways. This enabled us to investigate how and to what extent well-being and parenting behaviors in daily life were impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic and the related social distancing measures. Gaining more insight into these processes, our findings can contribute to formulating recommendations for policy makers and mental health professionals.
Positive and negative affect in daily life
Individuals' affect states are not one-dimensional and static in nature, but can fluctuate from moment to moment in response to other individuals and external circumstances (e.g., [12]). Positive and negative affect reflect a persons' momentary mood state. Both positive and negative affect have implications for health and well-being over time for adults and adolescents [13–18]. Positive affect predominantly generates action, motivation, social connectedness and cognitive flexibility, whereas negative affect might result in actions such as avoidance, attack, or expel [19, 20]. Using momentary assessments enabled us to identify the potential impact of the pandemic on parents' and adolescents' positive and negative affect in daily life without the potential bias of retrospective recall.
The COVID-19 pandemic and the related social measures might also impact parenting behaviors, such as the amount of expressed warmth and criticism. Parental warmth is typically considered as one of the primary dimensions of sensitive parenting behavior and can include acceptance, support, and positive involvement towards the child [21]. Parental criticism can be defined as expressing negativity, disapproval, or dissatisfaction to a child [22]. Psychological distress related to the COVID-19 pandemic may influence parenting behaviors, with parents being more emotionally withdrawn or critical and irritated, instead of being supportive, sensitive and encouraging to the child [23].
Previous studies have shown that especially positive mood of family members is closely related to warm family interactions, whereas negative mood is related to withdrawal from interactions [19, 24–26]. However, no prior studies have examined the effects of a situation comparable to the current COVID-19 pandemic on parenting. Therefore, in addition to its impact on affect, we also aimed to investigate the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and its consequences on parental warmth and criticism in daily life. Since parenting is a dynamic process [16], we will examine day-to-day parental warmth and criticism. Furthermore, as perspectives from parents and adolescents on parenting might differ (e.g., [27]), we examined both the parent and adolescent perspective on parental warmth and criticism.
Intolerance of uncertainty
A crucial aspect of unforeseen stressful situations, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, is uncertainty. Uncertainty is one of the key determinants of experienced levels of stress [28–30]. Moreover, the ability to deal with uncertainty varies widely. While some people can tolerate uncertainty very well, others have difficulties tolerating uncertainty and try to avoid it at best [31–33]. Intolerance of uncertainty (IU) is described as a predisposition to negatively perceive and respond to uncertain information and situations, irrespective of its probability and outcomes [34, 35]. As the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic influenced daily life for all people, escaping from the accompanied uncertainty is deemed impossible. Consequently, parents and adolescents with higher levels of IU might experience greater distress under the current circumstances, which might in turn also impact their affect and parenting behaviors. No prior studies have investigated the relation between IU and daily affect and parenting behavior within the family context. This was pursued in the present study. In the light of the pandemic, it is also examined to what extent IU is related to a change in affect and parenting behaviors.
Present study
In the present study, we examined the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on daily affect and parenting of both Dutch parents and adolescents. The aims were: (1) To explore parents' and adolescents' daily difficulties and helpful activities during the COVID-19 pandemic, (2) to examine and compare positive and negative affect of both parents and adolescents during 2 weeks of the COVID-19 pandemic and a similar 2-week period pre-pandemic (from now on referred to as baseline), (3) to examine and compare (perceived) parenting behaviors in terms of parental warmth and criticism towards the adolescent (as assessed by both the adolescent and the parent) during 2 weeks of the COVID-19 pandemic and a similar 2-week period pre-pandemic, (4) to examine whether parents' and adolescents' levels of IU at baseline are associated with affect and parenting behaviors in general, and (5) as well as with the hypothesized changes in affect and (perceived) parental warmth and criticism.
We expect an increase of negative affect and a decrease in positive affect for both parents and adolescents during the COVID-19 pandemic as compared to baseline. Regarding parenting behaviors, we expect lower levels of parental warmth and higher levels of parental criticism during the COVID-19 pandemic as compared to baseline, both from the perspective of parents and adolescents. With respect to IU, we expect that higher levels of IU predict higher levels of negative affect and lower levels of positive affect in parents and adolescents at both time points, as well as a greater increase in negative affect and decrease in positive affect during the COVID-19 pandemic compared to baseline.
The current study was based on baseline data of the ongoing Dutch multi-method two-generation RE-PAIR study: 'Relations and Emotions in Parent-Adolescent Interaction Research' and on the follow-up assessment 'RE-PAIR during the COVID-19 pandemic'. In RE-PAIR, we examine the relation between parent-child interactions and adolescent mental well-being. The study design and in- and exclusion criteria of the baseline assessment can be found in S1 Text. The current study included data from adolescents without psychopathology and their parents (i.e., healthy control families).
Inclusion criteria for the adolescents to participate in the current study at baseline were: being aged between 11 and 17 years, living at home with at least one primary caregiver, going to high school or higher education, and a good command of the Dutch language. Adolescents were excluded if they had a current mental disorder, a life-time history of major depressive disorder or dysthymia, or a history of psychopathology in the past two years. Adolescent psychopathology was assessed at baseline during a face-to-face interview using the Structured Interview of the Kiddie-Schedule for Affective Disorders and Schizophrenia—Present and Lifetime Version (K-SADS-PL [36]). For parents, no in- or exclusion criteria were specified, except for a good command of the Dutch language. To participate in the follow-up during the COVID-19 pandemic the adolescent had to still live at home with at least one caregiver. Adolescents and parents were allowed to sign up individually.
From the 80 adolescents and 151 parents who were contacted for the follow-up assessment during the COVID-19 pandemic, 51 individuals (14 adolescents and 37 parents) did not respond to any of the attempts of contact from the researchers. Of the individuals who did respond, 76 (31 adolescents and 45 parents) were not willing to participate. Reasons were: being busy and having other priorities (i.e., work, school, taking care of children or parents). The remaining 104 participants gave consent to participate. Two participants did not start the EMA and one participant did not complete the measures and hence, the final sample of the current study included 101 participants, consisting of 34 adolescents and 67 parents. Descriptive statistics of the current sample are described in the result section and in Table 1.
Table 1. Sample characteristics and study variables.
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0240962.t001
Recruitment of the participants was done via social media, advertisements, and flyers, with a specific focus on the inclusion of both parents (i.e., mothers and fathers). The focus was on primary caregivers, so not only biological parents could participate, but also stepparents and guardians, as long as they played an important role in the upbringing of the adolescent. Interested families could sign-up for the study via the website or mail and received information letters. Approximately two weeks later families were contacted by phone by one of the researchers to provide them with more information and check the inclusion criteria. If all criteria were met, families could participate in the study. All participants signed informed consent (including consent to contact them to request to participate in follow-up research). In addition, for adolescents younger than 16 years of age, both parents with legal custody signed informed consent.
The families completed the EMA in the period between September 2018 and November 2019 with EMA not taking place during holidays and exam weeks of the adolescent. Instructions on the EMA were given face-to-face prior to the baseline assessment and researchers assisted with installing the Ethica app [37] on the smartphone of the adolescent and both parents. Each family member also received written instructions and their individual account information. For participation in the EMA, parents received €20,- and adolescents €10,-. In addition, four gift vouchers of €75,- were raffled based on compliance.
All families who participated at baseline were invited for the follow-up in April 2020. The follow-up assessment was announced in a newsletter followed by a personal e-mail, and reminders were sent to parents and adolescents who had not responded yet. Parents and adolescents who agreed to participate were sent an online questionnaire on demographic characteristics and general mental well-being. Thereafter, participants received written instructions on how to download and reinstall the Ethica app. EMA data collection took place one month into the lockdown, from April 14th to April 28th. For participation in the follow-up assessment, parents received €20,- and adolescents €10,- in gift vouchers. The current study focusses on the EMA data of the baseline assessment (2018–2019) and the follow-up assessment (2020).
The RE-PAIR study was approved by the Medical Ethics Committee of Leiden University Medical Center (LUMC) in Leiden, the Netherlands (NL62502.058.17) and the follow-up assessment 'RE-PAIR during the COVID-19 pandemic' was approved by the Psychology Research Ethics Committee of Leiden University in Leiden, the Netherlands (2020-03-30-B.M. Elzinga-V2-2334).
EMA.
The EMA procedures and set-ups were almost entirely similar at baseline and during the COVID-19 pandemic and consisted of filling out questionnaires at four timepoints per day, for 14 consecutive days on parents' and adolescents' own smartphones using the mobile app Ethica (Ethica Data, 2019). At all timepoints participants completed questions about their affect and how they experienced contact with the last person they interacted with. Detailed information on the concepts in the questionnaires, triggering schedules, differences in set-up, number of items and completing time, and monitoring process can be found in S2 Text.
Compliance.
The overall response rate at baseline was 81.0%. Adolescents completed 74.2% of the EMA questionnaires at baseline (M = 41.56 completed, SD = 9.21, Min/Max = 12/54). Parents completed 84.1% of the EMA questionnaires at baseline (M = 47.12 completed, SD = 6.32, Min/Max = 29/56). The overall response rate during the COVID-19 pandemic was 72.1%. Adolescents completed 64.6% of the EMA questionnaires during the COVID-19 pandemic (M = 36.18 completed, SD = 13.71, Min/Max = 8/54). Parents completed 75.9% of the EMA questionnaires during the COVID-19 pandemic (M = 42.49 completed, SD = 9.17, Min/Max = 21/56). No participants were excluded based on EMA compliance.
EMA measures
Affect.
Momentary affect states of parents and adolescents were assessed four times per day with a slightly adapted and shortened four-item version of the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule for Children (PANAS-C; [38, 39]). At each timepoint participants were asked "How do you feel at the moment?" followed by two positive affect states "Happy" and "Relaxed", and two negative affect states "Sad" and "Irritated". Each affect state was rated on a 7-point Likert scale, ranging from 1 (not at all) to 7 (very). A mean score of the positive affect state was calculated per moment to create a momentary PA scale and a mean score of the negative affect state was calculated per moment to create a momentary NA scale. A higher score represented higher levels of PA or NA.
Daily parenting.
In the last questionnaire of each day, adolescents were asked to indicate with whom they spoke during that day (i.e., mother, father, stepmother, stepfather), and if so, to rate each parent's warmth and criticism by answering the questions "Throughout the day, how warm/loving was your parent towards you?" and "Throughout the day, how critical was your parent towards you?" on a 7-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (not at all) to 7 (very). If adolescents only reported on mother and stepfather for instance throughout the EMA, scores about stepfathers were recoded as father. This was the case for two adolescents during the baseline and three adolescents during the COVID-19 pandemic. One adolescent reported on four caregivers (i.e. biological parents and stepparents) during both periods and we included scores about biological parents because these were mostly rated.
In the questionnaire at the end of each day parents also had to indicate whether they spoke to their child (i.e., the participating adolescent) and if so, to rate their own behavior towards their child by answering the questions "How warm/loving were you towards your child?" and "How critical were you towards your child?" on a 7-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (not at all) to 7 (very). Both for adolescent and parent report, a higher score represented more warmth and more criticism.
Daily difficulties and helpful activities.
To assess the difficulties and helpful activities during the COVID-19 pandemic, at the end of each day, participants were asked to choose items from a list of potential activities. Parents and adolescents could select almost similar activities and it was possible to give multiple answers. The list of potential daily difficulties consisted of: boredom, fights/conflicts, work (for parents)/homework (for adolescents), irritations with family members, noise disturbance, loneliness, missing social contact with friends, worries about own health, worries about health of others, concerns about the coronavirus in general, coronavirus-related news items or 'anything else, namely…'. The list of potential helpful activities consisted of: work (for parents)/homework (for adolescents), watching series/television, listening to music, gaming, social media, reading a book, sports, chilling, online contact with relatives or friends, being together with the family, card or board games, DIY or crafts, cooking/dining, 'anything else, namely'. Based on the total number of observed responses a top 5 of daily difficulties and helpful activities was composed. Percentages were calculated by dividing the number of observed responses on one activity by the total of given answers.
Intolerance of uncertainty.
The 12-item version of the Intolerance of Uncertainty Scale (IUS; [40]) was used to assess IU of parents and adolescents. Participants completed this questionnaire online prior to baseline. The 12 items of the IUS (e.g., "Uncertainty makes me uneasy, anxious, or stressed." or "I should be able to organize everything in advance.") were answered on a 5-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). A higher sum score represents higher levels of intolerance of uncertainty. Both the original and the 12-item version of the IUS appear to have satisfactory concurrent, discriminant, and predictive validity [41]. Internal consistency of the scale was good with a Cronbach's alpha of .81 for adolescents and .83 for parents.
Depressive symptoms.
The Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-9; [42]) was used to screen for the presence of depressive symptoms during the past two weeks. Depressive symptoms were assessed at both timepoints. The items are based on nine DSM-IV criteria for depression and are scored as 0 (not at all) to 3 (nearly every day). The PHQ-9 has been validated for use in primary care. Sum scores range from 0 to 27 and a score above 10 is suggestive of the presence of depression [43]. For parents, the Cronbach's alpha at baseline was .79 and during the COVID-19 pandemic .73. For adolescents, Cronbach's alpha at baseline was .53 and during the COVID-19 pandemic .76.
Strategy of analyses
Parents and adolescents reported repeatedly on positive affect, negative affect, parental warmth, and parental criticism at baseline and during the COVID-19 pandemic. These repeated measures (Level 1) were nested within individuals (Level 2). Given this nested structure of the data, multilevel modelling [44] was used for the main analyses. Models were specified in R Version 3.6.1 [45], using the multilevel version 2.6 [46] package to test our hypotheses with maximum likelihood (ML) estimation. Level 2 predictors were grand-mean centered, following guidelines proposed by Hoffman [47] and Bolger and Laurenceau [48].
To evaluate within-person change in positive affect, negative affect, parental warmth, and parental criticism from baseline to the COVID-19 pandemic, a series of models were tested. Separate models were tested per outcome and per informant (adolescents and parents), resulting in a total of 8 models. Per model, several similar steps were taken. First, we specified an unconditional random intercept model with covariance structure (Model 1). For more information on the selection of covariance structure and results see S3 Text. Second, we added period as predictor (Model 2), which was scored 0 (baseline) and 1 (during the COVID-19 pandemic) to model change. For example, to model change in positive affect, we specified period as the predictor and positive affect as the outcome. The intercept of the model estimates is positive affect score at baseline and the slope of the model is the estimated change from baseline to during the COVID-19 pandemic. Fourth, we added a random effect (Model 3) indicating that the change from baseline to during the COVID-19 pandemic could vary between persons. Significant changes in model fit were tested with likelihood ratio tests (following guidelines of Hox [44]). Fifth, we examined whether the changes were predicted by IU by adding a main effect of IU (Model 4). In the models on parental warmth and parental criticism gender of parents was also added to the model as main effect to test for possible gender differences. In the final model (Model 5), we also added an interaction term of IU with period to test the possible moderating role of IU.
Since two parents of a same family could participate in the study, a third level (family) was specified in all models including parents (Model 1b). To not overcomplicate our models, we tested whether adding family level (Level 3) to Model 1 for parents improved the model fit based on the likelihood ratio tests. Only if these tests were significant, the third level remained in the model. Since adolescents could report on parenting of fathers and mothers, family was specified as extra level in the models concerning parental warmth and parental criticism reported by adolescents (Model 1b). For adolescents, answers on father and mother (Level 2) are nested within adolescents (Level 3). We tested whether adding parent level (Level 2) to Model 1 for adolescents improved the model fit based on the likelihood ratio tests. If these tests were significant, the second level remained in the model.
We used two-tailed tests with an α = 0.05. The analytic plan for this study was uploaded to Open Science Framework prior to the analyses (preregistered at April 27th, osf.io/34ycu).
In the current study, 67 Dutch parents (age range during the COVID-19 pandemic: 36.25–71.04 years) and 34 adolescents (age range during the COVID-19 pandemic: 14.66–19.01 years) participated. Participant characteristics can be found in Table 1. The sample reported little to none depressive symptoms as measured with the PHQ-9. PHQ-9 scores of adolescents ranged between 0–9 at baseline and between 0–16 during the COVID-19 pandemic. PHQ-9 scores of parents ranged between 0–16 at baseline and between 0–16 during the COVID-19 pandemic. Levels of depressive symptoms did not differ between the two periods for adolescents (t = 1.11, df = 33, p = .275) and parents (t = 1.24, df = 67, p = .221). Information on household composition of participating families can be found in S3 Text. Correlations between study variables (gender, age, affect, parenting behavior, and IU) can be found in S1 Table (parents) and S2 Table (adolescents).
Situational description of the families during the COVID-19 pandemic
Of all parents, 91% (n = 61) were currently employed, 6% (n = 4) were unemployed and 3% (n = 2) were unable to work or lost their job due to the COVID-19 pandemic. During the 14 days of EMA, 53.7% of the parents who were employed worked more from home, 7.5% worked less from home and 38.8% worked just as much from home as compared to the period before the COVID-19 pandemic. All parents indicated owning a house with a garden and having a living surface >100m2. Of our sample, 17.9% (n = 12) of the parents reported having COVID-19 related symptoms during the 14 days of EMA.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, the most reported daily difficulties across the 14 days of EMA for parents were (1) missing social contact with friends (14.6%), (2) concerns about the coronavirus in general (13.5%), (3) irritations with family members (12.8%), (4) worrying about health of others (8.3%), and (5) coronavirus-related news items (8.0%). It was also asked daily which activities were helpful during the day. The top 5 of helpful activities reported by parents was (1) being together with family (20.0%), (2) cooking/dining (14.4%), (3) watching television/series (9.9%), (4) work (7.4%), and (5) online contact with relatives or friends (6.2%).
Adolescents.
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic all national final school exams were canceled and some high schoolers already graduated (or not) based on their prior school exams, 5 (21.7%) adolescents graduated promptly in March 2020 prior to the 14 days of EMA. Of our adolescent sample, one person reported having COVID-19 related symptoms during the 14 days of EMA.
For adolescents (n = 34) the top 5 daily difficulties was (1) boredom (22.9%), (2) missing social contact with friends (17.7%), (3) irritations with family members (13.1%), (4) homework (12.3%), and (5) worry about the health of others (6.4%). The top 5 helpful activities for adolescents were (1) chilling (12.9%), (2) watching television/series (11.4%), (3) online contact with relatives or friends (11.0%), (4) listening to music (10.8%), and (5) being together with the family (9.6%).
Affect during the COVID-19 pandemic versus baseline
Affect: Parent reports.
First, an unconditional means model of negative affect with the intercept only was built (referred to as 'Model 1'- complete model results of parents can be found in S3 Table, model fit statistics of parents can be found in S4 Table). The intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) was .31 on the person level, indicating that moderate concordance of negative affect across time points within persons existed. Next, family was added as level to the unconditional means model (Model 1b). The ICC of the family level was .11, which indicates that some concordance of negative affect existed within families. However, the model fit did not improve significantly (χ2(1) = 1.581, p = .209) and family level was therefore removed from the model.
Next, in Model 2, we tested change in negative affect from baseline to during the COVID-19 pandemic by adding period to the model. Parents reported more negative affect during COVID-19 pandemic as compared to the baseline (B = 0.096, SE = .025, df = 5982, t = 3.900, p < .001). Adding individual variance in Model 3 improved the model fit significantly (χ2(2) = 56.613, p < .001). In Model 4, we added IU which was significantly associated with negative affect (B = 0.022, SE = .010, df = 62, t = 2.075, p = .042) indicating that more IU was related to more negative affect (main effect). Lastly, we added IU as moderator in Model 5 and results of this final model are presented in Table 2. No moderating effect of IU was found (B = 0.002, SE = .007, df = 5752, t = 0.225, p = .822) and IU was no longer significantly associated with negative affect (B = 0.021, SE = .011, df = 62, t = 1.960, p = .054), but period remained significantly associated with negative affect. Results are shown in Fig 2.
Fig 2. Association between negative affect and IU grouped per period for parents (left) and adolescents (right).
Table 2. Results of final model 5 on the relation between period and affect and the moderating role of intolerance of uncertainty in parents.
For positive affect, the same steps were followed. Model 1 showed an ICC of .32 and adding family level (Model 1b) did not significantly improve the model fit (χ2(1) = 0.738, p = .390). Results of Model 2 showed that parents' positive affect did not differ across the two periods (B = 0.012, SE = .028, df = 5986, t = 0.404, p = .686). Adding individual variance in Model 3 improved the model fit significantly (χ2(2) = 122.186, p < .001). In Model 4 IU was added as a main effect, but no significant association with positive affect was found. Lastly, IU was added as moderator in Model 5, but no moderating effect of IU was found (B = -0.008, SE = .009, df = 5756, t = -0.823, p = .411). Results of this final model are presented in Table 2.
Affect: Adolescent reports.
In Model 1, the ICC of negative affect on the person level was .32 (complete model results of adolescents can be found in S5 Table, model fit statistics of adolescents can be found in S6 Table). Results of Model 2 showed that there was no significant change in adolescent negative affect (B = 0.016, SE = .027, df = 2618, t = 0.595, p = .552). Adding individual variance in Model 3 improved the model fit significantly (χ2(2) = 39.759, p < .001). In Model 4, we added IU as a main effect which was significantly associated with negative affect (B = 0.030, SE = .011, df = 30, t = 2.737, p = .010) indicating that more IU was related to more negative affect. IU was added as moderator in Model 5 and IU remained significantly associated with negative affect, but no moderating effect of IU was found (B = -0.006, SE = .008, df = 2463, t = -0.803, p = .422). Results of this final model are presented in Table 3. Results are shown in Fig 2.
Table 3. Results of final model 5 on the relation between period and affect and the moderating role of intolerance of uncertainty in adolescents.
For positive affect in Model 1, the ICC on the person level was .33. No significant change in adolescent positive affect (B = 0.025, SE = .043, df = 2618, t = 0.574, p = .566) was found in Model 2. Adding individual variance in Model 3 improved the model fit significantly (χ2(2) = 103.798, p < .001). In Model 4, we added IU as main effect, which was significantly associated with positive affect (B = -0.044, SE = .015, df = 30, t = -2.917, p = .007), indicating that more IU was related to less positive affect. IU was added as moderator in Model 5, IU remained significantly associated with positive affect, but no moderating effect of IU was found (B = -0.003, SE = .017, df = 2463, t = -0.199, p = .842). Results of this final model are presented in Table 3.
Parenting: Parent reports.
In Model 1, the ICC of parental criticism on the person level was .39 (complete model results of parents can be found in S3 Table, model fit statistics of parents can be found in S4 Table). Adding family level (Model 1b) did significantly improve the model fit (χ2(1) = 5.430, p = .020) with an ICC of .20 at the family level and 'family' remained in the model. Results of Model 2 showed that no difference in parental criticism between baseline and during the COVID-19 pandemic was found (B = 0.126, SE = .064, df = 1530, t = 1.963, p = .050). Adding individual variance in Model 3 improved the model fit significantly (χ2(4) = 39.527, p < .001). In Model 4, we added IU and gender of the parent as main effects. Both were not significantly associated with parental criticism. IU was added as moderator in Model 5, but no moderating effect of IU was found (B = -0.013, SE = .014, df = 1466, t = -0.944, p = .346). Results of this final model are presented in Table 4.
Table 4. Results of final model 5 on the relation between period and daily parenting behavior and the moderating role of intolerance of uncertainty in parents.
For parental warmth in Model 1, the ICC on the person level was .46 and adding family level (Model 1b) did not significantly improve the model fit (χ2(1) = 0.761, p = .383). No significant change in parental warmth (B = 0.010, SE = .038, df = 1530, t = 0.255, p = .799) was found in Model 2. Adding individual variance in Model 3 improved the model fit significantly (χ2(2) = 22.499, p < .001). In Model 4, we added IU and gender of parent and both were not significantly associated with parental warmth. IU was added as moderator in Model 5, but no moderating effect of IU was found (B = 0.004, SE = .008, df = 1466, t = .489, p = .625). Results of this final model are presented in Table 4.
Parenting: Adolescent reports.
In Model 1, the ICC of parental criticism on the person level was .45 (complete model results of adolescents can be found in S5 Table, model fit statistics of adolescents can be found in S6 Table). Adding family level (Model 1b) did not significantly improve the model fit (χ2(1) = 2.925, p = .087). Results of Model 2 showed that the change in reports on parental criticism between baseline and during the COVID-19 pandemic was not significant (B = 0.036, SE = .062, df = 1350, t = 0.576, p = .565). Adding individual variance in Model 3 improved the model fit significantly (χ2(2) = 53.931, p < .001). In Model 4, we added IU and gender of parent as main effects. Gender of parent was significantly associated with reports on parental criticism (B = -0.121, SE = .058, df = 1268, t = -2.099, p = .036), indicating that adolescents reported more parental criticism of mothers than fathers. IU was not significantly associated with parental criticism. IU was added as moderator in Model 5, but no moderating effect of IU was found (B = 0.028, SE = .021, df = 1267, t = 0.083, p = .934). Results of this final model are presented in Table 5. Gender of parents remained significantly associated with parental criticism.
Table 5. Results of final model 5 on the relation between period and daily parenting behavior and the moderating role of intolerance of uncertainty in adolescents.
For parental warmth in Model 1, the ICC on the person level was .60 and adding family level (Model 1b) did significantly improve the model fit (χ2(1) = 25.314, p < .001) with an ICC of .05 at the family level and family remained in the model. No significant change in parental warmth (B = 0.026, SE = .051, df = 1317, t = 0.500, p = .617) was found in Model 2. Adding individual variance in Model 3 improved the model fit significantly (χ2(4) = 74.831, p < .001). In Model 4, we added IU and gender of parent and both were not significantly associated with parental warmth. IU was added as moderator in Model 5, but no moderating effect of IU was found (B = 0.002, SE = .021, df = 1267, t = 0.083, p = .934). Results of this final model are presented in Table 5.
Post hoc analyses on increase in parents' negative affect during the COVID-19 pandemic.
As IU did not explain why parents reported more negative affect during COVID-19 pandemic as compared to the baseline, we did some post hoc analyses to examine whether characteristics related to the lockdown and the COVID-19 pandemic were associated with the increase of parents' negative affect. Living surface, income, having suffered from COVID-19 symptoms, helping children with school at home, working from home, going to work, daily difficulties during the past two weeks of COVID-19, and working with COVID-19 patients were examined (see S7 and S8 Tables for description of the EMA items). None of these characteristics were related to the increase of parents' negative affect during the COVID-19 pandemic as compared to the baseline (all p-values < .001).
In this study we (1) explored parents' and adolescents' daily difficulties and helpful activities during the COVID-19 pandemic (2) examined positive and negative affect of both parents and adolescents during 2 weeks of the COVID-19 pandemic and compared them to a 2-week baseline period pre-pandemic, (3) examined parenting behaviors (assessed by both the adolescent and the parent) and compared parental warmth and criticism towards the adolescent during 2 weeks of the COVID-19 pandemic and a 2-week baseline period, (4) examined whether parents' and adolescents' levels of IU at baseline are associated with affect and parenting in general, and (5) as well as with the hypothesized changes in affect and (perceived) parental warmth and criticism.
Subjective experience of the COVID-19 pandemic
Most importantly, both parents and adolescents were bothered by a lack of social contact with friends, by irritations with family members, and worried about the health of others. This might be a logical consequence of the lockdown and social distancing. Remarkably, adolescents struggled with boredom whereas this was not the case for parents. Parents worried about the coronavirus in general, while this did not bother adolescents that much. In response to social distancing, online contact with relatives or friends aided both parents and adolescents to cope with the situation. In addition, watching tv-shows was also mentioned as a helpful activity by parents and adolescents. Other activities that helped to cope with the situation varied across parents and adolescents. While parents reported to benefit from being together with family and cooking and dining, adolescents reported chilling and listening to music.
Negative affect
Previous studies have shown that quarantine and quarantine-related issues (i.e., financial insecurity, fear of infection, uncertainty about duration) in general have a negative influence on adult mood and mental well-being [9]. Therefore, it was expected that the COVID-19 pandemic and lockdown would increase negative affect and decrease positive affect as compared with a period before the lockdown. Our results show that, indeed, parents' negative affect increased as compared to the period before the lockdown. Important to note is that we collected data during 5th and 6th week of the lockdown in the Netherlands with only minor prospects of easing regulations. We also explored whether other pandemic-related characteristics (i.e. living surface, income, relatives with COVID-19, hours of working at home, helping children with school and contact with COVID-19 patients at work) were linked to the increase of negative affect in parents. This was not the case.
Our findings suggested however the presence of heterogeneity among individuals. All our models improved significantly when allowing the associations between period (2 weeks of the COVID-19 pandemic versus a similar 2-week baseline period) and affect and parenting behavior to vary across individuals, which is in line with the theoretical notion of differential susceptibility (e.g., [49]). Whether or not parents and adolescents experience (emotional) problems during lockdown can clearly vary from household to household, suggesting that in general families seem to be able to adapt to the circumstances, but that some families struggle. This is important to keep in mind for potential future measures of social distancing.
It was expected that the forced social distance during the COVID-19 pandemic and particularly the physical distance from friends and peers and the school closure would result in an increase of negative affect and decrease of positive affect in adolescents (see also Loades et al. [50]). Yet, in our study, no differences in adolescent reports on negative affect were found during the COVID-19 pandemic as compared to a baseline period. As for adults, the opportunities for adolescents of online social interaction might have buffered feelings of isolation or loneliness and bolstered mental well-being during the COVID-19 pandemic [51]. Moreover, it should be noted that our sample is considered healthy on average, based on the PHQ-9 scores, and lived in relatively favorable circumstances (e.g., high socioeconomic status). Affect of adolescents with (subclinical) mental health issues (e.g. depressive or anxiety symptoms) or living under less fortune circumstances might be more influenced during the COVID-19 pandemic. Therefore, it is important to examine the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic in clinical samples to elucidate its effect on psychopathology. Moreover, it should be noted that our assessments were in the rather poignant phase of social lock down, when school closings may also have yielded relief for some adolescents. Even though individuals thrive to become independent during adolescence and start to explore the environment outside family household [2, 3] this period of enforced proximity did not seem to affect adolescents on the short-term. Potentially, the endurance of the lockdown may have more detrimental effects on adolescent well-being.
Positive affect
Not for parents nor for adolescents, a change in positive affect was found. Despite the increase of stress and uncertainty around the COVID-19 pandemic, disasters such as a pandemic also might increase the sense of social connectedness and morality [10]. This sense of shared social identity and the feeling of 'we are all in this together' can be related to positive affect [20], which could explain why positive affect did not decrease in the present study. In families, as in our sample, no one was home alone, and one could still have online social interactions with others outside the household. To that end, 'physical distancing' might be a better term for the imposed social isolation or social distance, as was previously suggested in literature [10].
As mentioned before, the COVID-19 pandemic and the related lockdown may lead to more tension, irritability, and family conflicts or worse [10]. Notably, parent' affect and parenting behavior are interrelated and are both involved in giving comfort, expressing approval or expressing criticism [52, 53]. For instance, parents who worry more, express more criticism towards their adolescents, indicating that a negative affect promotes insensitive and in more extreme cases abusive parenting behavior, whereas positive affect strongly relates to supportive parenting [52, 53]. Regarding parenting behaviors, we therefore expected higher levels of parental criticism and lower levels of parental warmth during the COVID-19 pandemic as compared to baseline. We found, however, that parental warmth and criticism from both parent and adolescent perspective, did not differ between before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. Interestingly, even though negative affect of parents increased compared to the period before lockdown, this did not seem to affect parenting behavior (self-report and perceived by the adolescent). It should be noted that, in general, adolescents perceived their mothers as more critical compared with fathers, unrelated to measurement period. This might be due to the unique roles of mothers and fathers in caregiving and setting rules and boundaries [54, 55].
Intolerance of uncertainty (IU)
Results showed that IU was related to more negative affect in both parents and adolescents, independent of the period of assessment. Furthermore, in adolescents, IU was also linked to a decrease in positive affect, while for parents no link between IU and positive affect was found. It was expected that people with elevated IU levels might experience even greater distress under the COVID-19 circumstances as compared to baseline, however our results do not support this. IU is often described as a predisposition to negatively perceive and respond to uncertain information and situations, irrespective of its probability and outcomes [34, 35]. Apparently, it is negatively associated with affect in daily life, regardless of whether there are major threats and uncertainties, or more daily hassles. Future research could elucidate why IU may particularly dampen positive affect in adolescents and not in adults. Even though IU seems to relate to affect of parents and adolescents, it did not seem to spill over into parenting behaviors. These results give a first indication that IU also relates to more micro processes in daily life, for both adolescents and parents.
Strengths, limitations and remarks
Firstly, the intensive longitudinal study design with multiple assessments per day enabled us to gain more fine-grained insights in affect and parenting behaviors in daily life and to consider individual differences. Secondly, assessment during two periods, before and during the COVID-19 pandemic, allowed us to detect changes due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Next to the strengths, it should be acknowledged that the sample (67 parents and 34 adolescents) was relatively small. Second, it should be noted that the study sample consisted of overall healthy, well-functioning parents and adolescents. That is, adolescents were screened at baseline and were excluded if they had a current mental disorder, a history of psychopathology in the past two years, or a lifetime history of major depressive disorder or dysthymia. Moreover, the PHQ-9 scores of adolescents and parents indicated few depressive symptoms. Therefore, findings might not be applicable to adolescents and parents with (sub)clinical mental health problems or at-risk populations (e.g. refugees, low socioeconomic status), since these groups might be at increased risk of problems such as loneliness, negative affect or negative parenting practices during the COVID-19 pandemic. Lastly, it should be noted that information on long-term consequences of lockdown during the COVID-19 pandemic is lacking.
Prior research has suggested that the impact of stress can be altered by mindsets and appraisals of stressful events [10, 56, 57]. These factors could possibly explain the individual variations we found. For instance, people with low expectations of the course of events might adapt relatively well to new situations and, therefore, experience little emotional problems. Moreover, adaptive mindsets about stressful events might increase positive emotions and reduce negative health symptoms [58]. Considering these factors in future studies might be useful to elucidate individual differences in risk and resilience.
In our study parents, but not adolescents, showed an increase of negative affect in a two-week period (14–28 April 2020) during the COVID-19 pandemic compared with a similar two-week baseline period pre-pandemic. Positive affect and parenting behaviors 'warmth' and 'criticism' did not change. It can be concluded that, on average, parents and adolescents in our sample seem to deal fairly well with the circumstances. Individuals and families differed however to what extent the COVID-19 pandemic influenced their affect and (perspective of) parenting behavior. Living surface, income, having suffered from COVID-19 symptoms, helping children with school at home, working from home, going to work, difficulties during COVID-19, and working with COVID-19 patients did not explain the increase of parental negative affect.
Policy makers and mental health professionals working to prepare for potential disease outbreaks should be aware that the experience of being quarantined might affect individuals differently. Each parent and adolescent could therefore benefit from a different coping strategy, as 'one size does not fit all'. Providing easily accessible and safe ways to increase online contact for all ages and layers of society, recommending to search for distraction such as listening to music or watching television, and helping to accept the uncertain situation are for instance potential coping strategies. In this way, individuals can find ways that suit their own personal needs in order to benefit their well-being in times of a lockdown and social distancing measures.
S1 Text. Detailed information RE-PAIR study.
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0240962.s001
(DOCX)
S2 Text. Detailed information on EMA: Concepts in the questionnaires, triggering schedules, differences in set-up, number of items and completing time, and monitoring process.
S3 Text. Information on household composition of participating families.
S4 Text. Detailed information on covariance structure.
S1 Table. Correlations between study variables for parents.
S2 Table. Correlations between study variables for adolescents.
S3 Table. Model results parents.
Table A: Model results on the relation between period and negative affect, and the moderating role of intolerance of uncertainty in parents. Table B: Model results on the relation between period and positive affect, and the moderating role of intolerance of uncertainty in parents. Table C: Model results on the relation between period and parental criticism, and the moderating role of intolerance of uncertainty in parents. Table D: Model results on the relation between period and parental warmth, and the moderating role of intolerance of uncertainty in parents.
S4 Table. Model fit statistics of all models of parents.
S5 Table. Model results adolescents.
Table A: Model results on the relation between period and negative affect, and the moderating role of intolerance of uncertainty in adolescents. Table B: Model results on the relation between period and positive affect, and the moderating role of intolerance of uncertainty in adolescents. Table C: Model results on the relation between period and parental criticism, and the moderating role of intolerance of uncertainty in adolescents. Table D: Model results on the relation between period and parental warmth, and the moderating role of intolerance of uncertainty in adolescents.
S6 Table. Model fit statistics of all models of adolescents.
S7 Table. Overview of EMA items used in the current study.
S8 Table. Overview of EMA items of the exit questionnaire used in the current study.
We are grateful to all the families that have invested their time by participating in this study. We furthermore thank Ethica data for offering their services (i.e., use of the Ethica app and platform) free of charge during the COVID-19 pandemic.
1. Organization WH. WHO announces COVID-19 outbreak a pandemic. 2020. http://www.euro.who.int/en/health-topics/health-emergencies/coronavirus-covid-19/news/news/2020/3/who-announces-covid-19-outbreak-a-pandemic#:~:text=COVID-19 can be, growing number of countries.
2. Steinberg L, Silk J. Parenting adolescents. In: Bornstein MH, editor. Handbook of parenting: Children and parenting. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Publishers; 2002. pp. 103–133.
3. Steinberg L. Cognitive and affective development in adolescence. Trends in Cognitive Sciences. 2005. pp. 69–74. pmid:15668099
PubMed/NCBI
4. Cava MA, Fay KE, Beanlands HJ, McCay EA, Wignall R. The experience of quarantine for individuals affected by SARS in Toronto. Public Health Nursing. 2005;22: 398–406. pmid:16229732
5. Hawryluck L, Gold WL, Robinson S, Pogorski S, Galea S, Styra R. SARS control and psychological effects of quarantine, Toronto, Canada. Emerging Infectious Diseases. 2004;10: 1206–1212. pmid:15324539
6. Liu X, Kakade M, Fuller CJ, Fan B, Fang Y, Kong J, et al. Depression after exposure to stressful events: Lessons learned from the severe acute respiratory syndrome epidemic. Comprehensive Psychiatry. 2012;53: 15–23. pmid:21489421
7. Sprang G, Silman M. Posttraumatic stress disorder in parents and youth after health-related disasters. Disaster Medicine and Public Health Preparedness. 2013;7: 105–110. pmid:24618142
8. Jeong H, Yim HW, Song YJ, Ki M, Min JA, Cho J, et al. Mental health status of people isolated due to Middle East Respiratory Syndrome. Epidemiology and health. 2016;38: e2016048. pmid:28196409
9. Brooks SK, Webster RK, Smith LE, Woodland L, Wessely S, Greenberg N, et al. The psychological impact of quarantine and how to reduce it: rapid review of the evidence. The Lancet. Elsevier; 2020. pp. 912–920. pmid:32112714
10. Bavel JJV, Baicker K, Boggio PS, Capraro V, Cichocka A, Cikara M, et al. Using social and behavioural science to support COVID-19 pandemic response. Nature Human Behaviour. Nature Publishing Group; 2020. pp. 460–471. pmid:32355299
11. Stone AA, Shiffman S. Ecological momentary assessment (EMA) in behavioral medicine. Annals of Behavioral Medicine. 1994. pp. 199–202.
12. Kuppens P, Oravecz Z, Tuerlinckx F. Feelings change: Accounting for individual differences in the temporal dynamics of affect. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 2010;99: 1042–1060. pmid:20853980
13. Carstensen LL, Turan B, Scheibe S, Ram N, Ersner-Hershfield H, Samanez-Larkin GR, et al. Emotional experience improves with age: Evidence based on over 10 years of experience sampling. Psychology and Aging. 2011;26: 21–33. pmid:20973600
14. Eid M, Diener E. Intraindividual variability in affect: Reliability, validity, and personality correlates. Journal of personality and social psychology. 1999;76: 662.
15. Houben M, Van Den Noortgate W, Kuppens P. The relation between short-term emotion dynamics and psychological well-being: A meta-analysis. Psychological Bulletin. 2015;141: 901–930. pmid:25822133
16. Granic I, Dishion TJ, Hollenstein T. The family ecology of adolescence: A dynamic systems perspective on normative development. In: Berzonsky IGRA and M D, editor. Blackwell Handbook of Adolescence. Malden, MA: Blackwell; 2008. pp. 60–91. https://doi.org/10.1002/9780470756607.ch4
17. Wilson C, Budd B, Chernin R, King H, Leddy A, Maclennan F, et al. The role of meta-cognition and parenting in adolescent worry. Journal of Anxiety Disorders. 2011;25: 71–79. pmid:20828983
18. Maciejewski DF, van Lier PAC, Neumann A, Van der Giessen D, Branje SJT, Meeus WHJ, et al. The Development of Adolescent Generalized Anxiety and Depressive Symptoms in the Context of Adolescent Mood Variability and Parent-Adolescent Negative Interactions. Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology. 2014;42: 515–526. pmid:23982435
19. Bai S, Reynolds BM, Robles TF, Repetti RL. Daily links between school problems and youth perceptions of interactions with parents: A diary study of school-to-home spillover. Social Development. 2017;26: 813–830. pmid:29307958
20. Fredrickson BL. The role of positive emotions in positive psychology: The broaden-and-build theory of positive emotions. American Psychologist. 2001;56: 218–226. pmid:11315248
21. Epkins CC, Harper SL. Mothers' and fathers' parental warmth, hostility/rejection/neglect, and behavioral control: Specific and unique relations with parents' depression versus anxiety symptoms. Parenting. 2016;16: 125–145.
22. Hickey EJ, Hartley SL, Papp L. Psychological well-being and parent-child relationship quality in relation to child autism: An actor-partner modeling approach. Family Process. 2020;59: 636–650. pmid:30844091
23. Pottie CG, Ingram KM. Daily stress, coping, and well-being in parents of children with autism: A multilevel modeling approach. Journal of Family Psychology. 2008;22: 855–864. pmid:19102606
24. Flook L. Gender differences in adolescents' daily interpersonal events and well-being. Child Development. 2011;82: 454–461. pmid:21410907
25. Ramsey MA, Gentzler AL. An upward spiral: Bidirectional associations between positive affect and positive aspects of close relationships across the life span. Developmental Review. Academic Press; 2015. pp. 58–104.
26. Repetti R, Wang SW, Saxbe D. Bringing it all back home: How outside stressors shape families' everyday lives. Current Directions in Psychological Science. 2009;18: 106–111.
27. Korelitz KE, Garber J. Congruence of parents' and children's perceptions of parenting: A meta-analysis. Journal of Youth and Adolescence. 2016;45: 1973–1995. pmid:27380467
28. Buhr K, Dugas MJ. Investigating the construct validity of intolerance of uncertainty and its unique relationship with worry. Journal of Anxiety Disorders. 2006;20: 222–236. pmid:16464706
29. Zlomke KR, Young JN. A retrospective examination of the role of parental anxious rearing behaviors in contributing to intolerance of uncertainty. Journal of Child and Family Studies. 2009;18: 670–679.
30. Meeten F, Dash SR, Scarlet ALS, Davey GCL. Investigating the effect of intolerance of uncertainty on catastrophic worrying and mood. Behaviour Research and Therapy. 2012;50: 690–698. pmid:22982084
31. Dugas MJ, Gagnon F, Ladouceur R, Freeston MH. Generalized anxiety disorder: A preliminary test of a conceptual model. Behaviour Research and Therapy. 1998;36: 215–226. pmid:9613027
32. Freeston MH, Rhéaume J, Letarte H, Dugas MJ, Ladouceur R. Why do people worry? Personality and individual differences. 1994;17: 791–802.
33. Rosen NO, Knäuper B. A little uncertainty goes a long way: State and trait differences in uncertainty interact to increase information seeking but also increase worry. Health Communication. 2009;24: 228–238. pmid:19415555
34. Ladouceur R, Blais F, Freeston MH, Dugas MJ. Problem solving and problem orientation in generalized anxiety disorder. Journal of Anxiety Disorders. 1998;12: 139–152. pmid:9560176
35. Ladouceur R, Gosselin P, Dugas MJ. Experimental manipulation of intolerance of uncertainty: A study of a theoretical model of worry. Behaviour Research and Therapy. 2000;38: 933–941. pmid:10957827
36. Reichart CG, Wals M, Hillegers M. Vertaling K-SADS. HC Rümke Groep, Utrecht. 2000.
37. Data E. No Title. 2019. https://ethicadata.com
38. Ebesutani C, Regan J, Smith A, Reise S, Higa-McMillan C, Chorpita BF. The 10-item Positive and Negative Affect Schedule for Children, Child and parent shortened versions: Application of item response theory for more efficient assessment. Journal of Psychopathology and Behavioral Assessment. 2012;34: 191–203.
39. Watson D, Clark LA, Tellegen A. Development and validation of brief measures of positive and negative affect: The PANAS scales. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 1988;54: 1063–1070. pmid:3397865
40. Carleton RN, Norton MAAPJ, Asmundson GJG. Fearing the unknown: A short version of the Intolerance of Uncertainty Scale. Journal of Anxiety Disorders. 2007;21: 105–117. pmid:16647833
41. Khawaja NG, Yu LNH. A comparison of the 27-item and 12-item intolerance of uncertainty scales. Clinical Psychologist. 2010;14: 97–106.
42. Kroenke K, Spitzer RL, Williams JBW. The PHQ-9: Validity of a brief depression severity measure. Journal of General Internal Medicine. 2001;16: 606–613. pmid:11556941
43. Manea L, Gilbody S, McMillan D. Optimal cut-off score for diagnosing depression with the Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-9): A meta-analysis. CMAJ. 2012;184: E191–E196. pmid:22184363
44. Hox J, Moerbeek M, Van de Schoot R. Multilevel analysis: Techniques and applications. 2010.
45. Team RC. R: A language and environment for statistical computing (Version 3.6.1)[Software package]. Vienna, Austria: R Foundation for Statistical Computing. Retrieved from …; 2019.
46. Bliese P, Bliese MP. Package 'multilevel.' 2016.
47. Hoffman L. Longitudinal analysis: Modeling within-person fluctuation and change. Routledge; 2015.
48. Bolger N, Laurenceau J-P. Intensive longitudinal methods: An introduction to diary and experience sampling research. Guilford Press; 2013.
49. Pluess M, Belsky J. Differential susceptibility to parenting and quality child care. Developmental Psychology. 2010;46: 379–390. pmid:20210497
50. Loades ME, Chatburn E, Higson-Sweeney N, Reynolds S, Shafran R, Brigden A, et al. Rapid systematic review: The impact of social isolation and loneliness on the mental health of children and adolescents in the context of COVID-19. Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry. 2020. pmid:32504808
51. Doré BP, Morris RR, Burr DA, Picard RW, Ochsner KN. Helping others regulate emotion predicts increased regulation of one's own emotions and decreased symptoms of depression. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin. 2017;43: 729–739. pmid:28903637
52. Dix T. The affective organization of parenting: Adaptive and maladaptative processes. Psychological Bulletin. 1991;110: 3–25. pmid:1891517
53. Rueger SY, Katz RL, Risser HJ, Lovejoy MC. Relations between parental affect and parenting behaviors: A meta-analytic review. Parenting. 2011. pp. 1–33.
54. Lamb M. E., Lewis C. Father-child relationships. Handbook of Father Involvement: Multidisciplinary perspective. 2013. https://books.google.co.uk/books?hl=en&lr=&id=Xx-abFyPtg8C&oi=fnd&pg=PA119&dq=Lamb,+M.+E.,+%26+Lewis,+C.+(2013).+Father-child+relationships.+Handbook+of+father+involvement:+Multidisciplinary+perspectives,+2,+119-135.&ots=3modiWSSmw&sig=3JBCo6uwZOoiaFwnL_V
55. Van Lissa CJ, Keizer R, Van Lier PAC, Meeus WHJ, Branje S. The role of fathers' versus mothers' parenting in emotion-regulation development from mid-late adolescence: Disentangling between-family differences from within-family effects. Developmental Psychology. 2019;55: 377–389. pmid:30570297
56. Jamieson JP, Crum AJ, Goyer JP, Marotta ME, Akinola M. Optimizing stress responses with reappraisal and mindset interventions: an integrated model. Anxiety, Stress and Coping. Routledge; 2018. pp. 245–261. pmid:29471669
57. Dienstbier RA. Arousal and physiological toughness: Implications for mental and physical health. Psychological Review. 1989;96: 84–100. pmid:2538855
58. Crum AJ, Akinola M, Martin A, Fath S. The role of stress mindset in shaping cognitive, emotional, and physiological responses to challenging and threatening stress. Anxiety, Stress and Coping. 2017;30: 379–395. pmid:28120622
Is the Subject Area "Adolescents" applicable to this article?
Is the Subject Area "COVID 19" applicable to this article?
Is the Subject Area "Pandemics" applicable to this article?
Parenting behavior
Is the Subject Area "Parenting behavior" applicable to this article?
Behavioral and social aspects of health
Is the Subject Area "Behavioral and social aspects of health" applicable to this article?
Human families
Is the Subject Area "Human families" applicable to this article?
Mental health and psychiatry
Is the Subject Area "Mental health and psychiatry" applicable to this article?
Is the Subject Area "Emotions" applicable to this article?


Told from Tim's imaginative view (with Tobey Maguire narrating as adult Tim), the story navigates the trials and tribulations of sibling rivalry in a comedic fashion. When Tim and the Boss Baby come together to thwart a dastardly plot by the CEO of Puppy Co. (Steve Buscemi), they head toward a predictable path of mutual understanding.
Based on the award-winning picture book by Marla Frazee, the film brings to life the author's tongue-in-cheek storytelling on how a baby can wreak utter havoc in a family's life. However, the slapstick humor sometimes falls flat and the trailers show way too much of the funnier parts of the film.
In the end, the only statement being made is that this is an adequate family film. Oh, and love conquers all.


Rubber vulcanization accelerator DPG wastewater treatment method. First, the wastewater is subjected to acid-base flocculation, and the filtered wastewater enters an electrolytic cell equipped with a micro-electrolytic filler at 60-80 ° C, micro-electrolysis for 2 to 5 hours, after micro-electrolysis The wastewater is filtered, and the filtered wastewater is added with 10% to 30 ml of hydrogen peroxide/L wastewater to a concentration of 30% hydrogen peroxide, adjusted to pH=2 to 4, treated for 2 to 5 hours, and then added to flocculation at a ratio of 200 to 500 mg/L of wastewater. The agent PAC is flocculated, the pH is adjusted to 8 to 10, and the sedimentation time is 1 to 2 hours. After sedimentation, it is filtered first, and the filtered wastewater is adsorbed by activated carbon and resin, and the removal rate of CODcr reaches over 98%, reaching the discharge standard. The method has simple process, low equipment investment, low energy consumption, high COD removal rate, can reach more than 98%, better treatment effect, meet emission standards, and is easy to industrialize.
Promoter DPG is a medium speed accelerator for rubber, a medium speed accelerator for natural rubber and synthetic rubber, and an activator for thiazoles, thiurams and sulfenamide accelerators. The obtained product has good aging resistance. It is mainly used to manufacture rubber products such as tires, rubber sheets and soles. During the production process of the accelerator DPG, a large amount of high-concentration salt-containing organic wastewater is produced, which is difficult to handle, and its production and development are greatly restricted due to environmental pressure. The wastewater in the DPG production process mainly comes from the mother liquor distillation and water washing process. The salt and COD concentrations are high, with color and odor, and the water contains a variety of heterocyclic organic compounds, which are difficult to treat by biochemical methods. At present, there are few reports on the treatment of this type of wastewater, mostly evaporative distillation and other processes, which have large energy consumption and poor treatment effect.
A rubber vulcanization accelerator DPG wastewater treatment method: firstly, the wastewater is subjected to acid-base flocculation, and the filtered wastewater enters an electrolytic cell equipped with a micro-electrolytic filler for electrolysis and filtration, and the filtered wastewater is further added with hydrogen peroxide for Fenton oxidation, after oxidation. The wastewater is flocculated, sedimented and filtered. The filtered wastewater is adsorbed by activated carbon and resin, and the removal rate of CODcr reaches over 98%, reaching the discharge standard.
A rubber vulcanization accelerator DPG wastewater treatment method, the wastewater is subjected to acid-base flocculation, and the filtered wastewater enters an electrolytic cell equipped with a micro-electrolytic filler at 60-80 ° C, micro-electrolysis for 2 to 5 hours, and the wastewater after micro-electrolysis is carried out. Filtration, adding 10 to 30 ml of hydrogen peroxide per liter of filtered wastewater, adding hydrogen peroxide with a concentration of 30% hydrogen peroxide, adjusting pH=2 to 4, treating for 2 to 5 hours, and then adding flocculant PAC at a ratio of 200 to 500 mg/L of wastewater. Flocculation, pH adjustment 8~10, settling time is 1-2 hours; filtered after sedimentation, the filtered wastewater is adsorbed by activated carbon and resin, and the removal rate of CODcr is over 98%.


Fozzy ‹ The New Enigma online magazine is now underway!
Absolutely. I've been a music fan since I was about five years old. I've been in bands since I was 14.
I think my favorite band of all time is the Beatles, and then Metallica, Iron Maiden, Dream Theater. I was always into the heavy stuff, but also to the musical genius and the diversity of a band like the Beatles, or even the Police. My record pile is very eclectic. When you look through it you see many types of bands from every type of genre – rock to reggae, pop to soul music – anything that makes me feel the tunes I'm into.


text:
The mission to reduce the carbon footprint of astronomy
By Tereza Pultarova
published 2 February 2022
"We are doing science at an industrial scale. That's why we have a large carbon footprint."
Large observatories such as the Square Kilometer Array require a lot of electricity to peer into the distant universe. (Image credit: SKAO)
When Adriaan Schutte took up his job as a chief power engineer at the Square Kilometre Array Observatory (SKAO), he had a clear goal in mind: to build the world's most sustainable research facility.
It was an ambitious goal. SKAO is set to become the world's largest radio telescope, an astronomical observatory that uses tens of thousands of antennas to catch radio waves coming from distant stars, planets and galaxies.
Astronomy is power-hungry and radio astronomy is its most insatiable discipline. To power its two sprawling arrays in the Australian and South African wilderness, but also the computers that will digest the hundreds of gigabytes of data the antennas will gather every second, SKAO, once complete, will require 12 megawatts of electrical power (about as much as 10,000 average U.S. households).
Construction work at the observatory's two sites officially started last year, but the telescopes will only come online in the second half of this decade. With a designed lifetime of 50 years, SKAO will be probing the universe at least into the 2070s, a time when climate concerns are likely to be much more pressing than today.
"Radio astronomy is like particle physics," Schutte told Space.com. "We are doing science at an industrial scale. We are just so technologically advanced today that you need a massive facility if you want to discover anything new ... that's why we have a large carbon footprint."
Schutte, originally from South Africa, started his career in the mining industries of his homeland. There, he witnessed both environmental destruction and leadership's old-school resistance to change. "I had vowed never to return to that again," he said.
Related: Epic radio images give most-detailed views of distant galaxies
He joined SKAO in 2014, the year the project finally moved into design, after more than two decades of planning. The next year, at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Paris, nations signed the Paris Agreement, committing to limit the global temperature rise to 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit (1.5 degrees Celsius) compared to pre-industrial times.
Astronomers, as Schutte discovered, were early proponents of environmental responsibility, and getting SKAO management on board with his vision was easy.
"When they originally set up the project, they were very worried about the amount of power being consumed and the cost of that power," Schutte said. "So it was a really good time to join and bring the sustainability focus with me from the beginning."
The Square Kilometer Array's site in Australia will rely on 130,000 Christmas-tree like dipole antennas to listen to radio waves emitted by objects in the most distant universe. (Image credit: SKAO)
Surviving in a carbon neutral world
Radio astronomy might be power hungry among sciences. But Schutte admits that compared to the industries he started in, it is responsible for only a small drop in the ocean of greenhouse gas emissions that need to be tackled for the world to avoid the worst climate change scenarios.
"Some of the plants I used to work at in my early career use about 100 times as much power as SKAO," he said. But that, Schutte added, doesn't let science off the hook. In a world threatened by a climate collapse, its future may depend on its ability to clean up its act.
"We are entering an era where carbon emissions will be capped," said Schutte. "There will be a carbon budget for the whole planet and the various industries will compete for that. And in a situation where we only have so much carbon that we can emit and we have to choose between manufacturing goods that people need to survive and doing basic science, I think it's obvious what we are going to do."
The South African array of the Square Kilometer Array Observatory will consists of nearly 200 dish antennas scattered over a remote desert region. (Image credit: SKAO)
Five times worse than mere mortals
For Adam Stevens, a postdoctoral research fellow in astrophysics at the University of Western Australia, taking climate action is not just a point of survival for the carbon-hungry science, but also a point of honor for the scientists doing this science.
"I think there's an important aspect of leadership here," Stevens told Space.com. "Scientists and physical scientists in particular understand the physics of climate change and the importance of it. Many of us spend a lot of time trying to convince others to take it seriously. But what we should really be doing is leading by example and showing that we're able to do the things that are important to our industry and our jobs in a way that's environmentally sustainable."
Stevens was one of the first astronomers to take a deeper look at the carbon footprint of his profession. A couple of years ago, the idea came up during lunch discussions with his peers at the university. As representatives of the younger, more environmentally conscious generation, the postdocs were curious whether any data on astronomy's carbon footprint existed. He asked at a staff meeting.
"Everyone was like, 'Yeah, that's a good question,'" he said. "But when they looked around, they found that they really didn't know the answer."
It fell to Stevens to find out how much climate-warming carbon Australian astronomers produce. The paper (opens in new tab) that came out of this quest was published in Nature Astronomy in September 2020 and has since inspired other self-reflecting studies by astronomers all over the world. For Stevens, who specializes in modelling the evolution of galaxies, the findings were eye-opening.
The paper found that per year, an Australian astronomer produced on average 40.7 tons (37 metric tonnes) of carbon dioxide equivalent (a measure used to compare emissions from various greenhouse gases on the basis of their global-warming potential). That's about 40% more than the carbon footprint of an average Australian adult and five times as much as an average resident of Earth. Out of that, 24 tons (22 tonnes) on average stemmed from the astronomer's use of supercomputers.
"I thought, going in, that flying was going to be the worst thing," Stevens said. "I had an inkling of how carbon intensive that was. What I didn't realise was how energy intensive supercomputing and running observatories was. Supercomputing in particular accounted for something like 60% of our carbon footprint."
A prototype dish antenna installed at the Square Kilometer Array Observatory's site in the South African Karoo desert. (Image credit: SKAO)
Power-hungry computers
Astronomy's need for supercomputing, just as that of other scientific disciplines, is only bound to grow. In his paper, Stevens estimates that the demand for supercomputing of Australian astronomers will increase from 400 million central processing unit (CPU) core-hours in 2020 to 500 million by 2025.
At SKAO, super-computing will be responsible for 50% of the overall electricity consumption, split equally between two data centers in Australia and South Africa. The other 50% will be consumed directly by the telescopes.
When Schutte first joined SKAO, the observatory's estimated power consumption was close to 25 megawatts, more than double the current requirement. The team achieved the reduction by choosing the most efficient technologies every step of the way. For example, by replacing graphics processing units (GPU) in the computers that pre-process raw data generated by the antennas with more energy efficient devices called Field Programmable Gate Arrays, they cut the energy needed by a "significant amount".
The Square Kilometer Array observatory sites are protected as radio-quiet zones that are out of reach of cell phone as well as terrestrial TV and radio networks. (Image credit: SKAO)
Greening up
Experts, however, caution that in computing, any improvement in efficiency is quickly lost in the increasing demand, a trend that cannot be expected to slow down.
Reducing the carbon footprint of all data-driven sciences will therefore require switching to renewable sources of electricity.
A study (opens in new tab) by researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy in Germany published shortly after the one by Stevens found that German astronomers have a much lower carbon footprint than their Australian counterparts. The difference is largely down to the much higher proportion of renewable power in Germany's energy mix compared to staunchly coal-reliant Australia, Knud Jahnke, the lead author of the study, told Space.com.
As a result, a German astronomer would produce on average 20 tons (18.1 tonnes) of carbon dioxide equivalent per year, less than a half of the carbon footprint of the Australian astronomer. Still, this value means a German astronomer produces 60% more carbon than an average German citizen.
Unlike Australian astronomers, whose greenhouse gas emissions mostly come from the electricity used to power computing centers and observatories, the Germans' biggest contribution comes from air travel.
In pre-COVID times, the carbon footprint of shuttling to and from conferences and other meetings would add up to 9.35 tons (8.5 tonnes) of carbon dioxide equivalent per astronomer per year, nearly a half of their overall annual emissions. Still, they beat out Australian astronomers, who release 13.2 tons (12 tonnes) per year of carbon equivalent in air travel. However that remains less than half of their electricity-related carbon emissions.
But Jahnke believes that Germany's astronomers can't waste their time resting on their environmental laurels. "As astronomers, we have a much higher dependency on carbon emissions than many other sciences," Jahnke told Space.com. "How will we do science 15 years from now, or in the year 2050? It's pretty clear that we cannot have this level of carbon emissions in the year 2030 or 2040."
With the SKAO, Schutte can't tap into Germany's acceptance of clean energy; he must develop his climate plans with half of the observatory's equipment in coal-reliant Australia. The remote locations of the arrays, while challenging, are turning into an advantage.
The Australian array, to be built 500 miles (800 kilometers) away from Perth, Australia's westernmost city, will comprise over 130,000 Christmas tree-like dipole antennas arranged in spiral arms spreading from a dense core. It will sprawl across hundreds of square miles of land owned by Australian aboriginal communities.
The South African array, in the Karoo desert, will consist of nearly 200 parabolic dishes, each 50 feet (15 meters) wide, arranged in a similar spiral-like pattern.
The remoteness of those locations is key to the success of an observatory targeting radio emissions, which human technology also relies on. Both areas are protected by their respective governments as radio-quiet zones where the use of electronic and telecommunication devices is strictly limited. That means no cell phones, no terrestrial TV, no radio coverage.
"These telescopes are incredibly sensitive," Schutte said. "We will be essentially able to pick up a mobile telephone more or less anywhere in the solar system."
Just as the world's buzzing telecommunication networks don't reach the SKAO sites, neither do local electricity grids. The observatory will need to produce most of its own power; how it solves this problem will determine its carbon footprint.
"Both of the telescopes are essentially in desert areas, so we have incredible solar resources there," Schutte said. "Solar power, especially in sunny areas, is the lowest-cost energy, so we would be stupid if we didn't use that."
Still, the solution is not straightforward. The observatory will need power every minute of every day. Though Schutte might dream of carbon neutrality, given current technology, a fully sustainable solution would be, if not impossible, then extremely costly, requiring large amounts of lithium-based battery storage, which by itself presents a major environmental problem.
"Our modelling shows that if we build a hybrid power station with today's technology, combining photovoltaics, some battery and some diesel generators, then up to 45% renewables is completely feasible and is, in fact, the lowest-cost option," Schutte said. "So 45% of renewables is our bare minimum, but we also see in our modelling that we can go up to 90%. Anything above that would not be feasible at the moment."
SKAO, however, is a brand new facility that can build reduced emissions in from the beginning. But what about existing observatories? Those designed and built in an age where climate was an afterthought if anything?
The European Southern Observatory (ESO) operates several telescopes at three sites in the Atacama Desert in Chile, including the Very Large Telescope. Just like SKAO, ESO is considering Earth as well as the stars. In 2019, the organization ordered an audit of its carbon footprint that thoroughly assessed every aspect of its activities.
The audit found that ESO's annual carbon footprint was 30.8 kilotons (28 kilotonnes) of carbon dioxide equivalent with the biggest contributors being energy usage by the observatories (40%), the emissions generated during production of purchased items (30%) and business travel (10%).
If calculated per annual budget, ESO's operations are about as carbon intensive as those of the internet and telecommunication industries, ESO astronomer Robin Arsenault, who is in charge of the observatory's emissions reductions program, told Space.com. The observatory's carbon footprint [scaled by budget] is about a 10th that of car manufacturing and about a fifth of the retail industry, the audit found.
But since then, ESO has embarked on a major greening program that might see the observatory's emissions slashed by more than 4.4 kilotons (4 kilotonnes) in the next couple of years.
In the past, ESO's remote mountain-top observatories met most of their power needs using private turbines running on liquified petroleum gas. "It's a little better than diesel, but it still has a huge carbon footprint," Arsenault said.
In 2016, ESO built its first photovoltaic solar power plant at the La Silla Observatory on the Paranal mountain. On sunny days (of which there are plenty in Atacama), the 1.7-megawatt plant produces even more energy than the observatory needs, Arsenault said.
Last year, ESO announced construction of a 9-megawatt photovoltaic plant that will feed the upcoming Extremely Large Telescope and existing telescopes on Paranal.
"It will cover the full electricity demand of the telescopes during daytime," Arsenault said.
The future of astronomy
ESO's supercomputers reside at the organization's headquarters in Garching, Germany, and computer experts are already looking at ways to reduce their power consumption. ESO staff in the future may be getting new laptops less often to reduce the carbon footprint related to the production of purchased equipment. In many cases, astronomers from all over the world who want to use ESO's powerful telescopes will have to let go of a major perk of their profession — the privilege to travel to far-away locations, such as the Atacama Desert.
"In the long term, we want to do more remote operations so that astronomers do not travel to Chile all the time," Claudia Burger, the director of administration at ESO told Space.com. "We conduct already 80% of the observations this way, with our local staff doing the observations instead of the astronomers coming from all over the world."
Other world-class observatories, including the Vera Rubin Observatory that the U.S. is currently building in Chile, plan a similar approach relying on remote observing.
Out of the astronomers Space.com spoke to, everyone was in favor of a less jet-setting and less carbon intensive future of astronomy. Astronomers are prepared to do things differently, through virtual platforms rather than constant travel, citing the COVID-19 pandemic as a game-changer that showed them that it was indeed possible.
"We have been stuck in this classical model of conferencing since 100 years ago when, if you wanted people to talk and listen to each other and get inspired, you had to move them physically and bring them to the same location," said Jahnke, the German astronomer studying the profession's carbon footprint. "But that's not only expensive and time consuming, it's also inefficient. You can stuff a full week of meetings and talks, but honestly, most people are saturated by day two anyway."
— 10 devastating signs of climate change satellites can see from space
— New space mission will measure how much heat Earth is trapping from climate change
— The rise of space tourism could affect Earth's climate in unforeseen ways, scientists worry
As for Schutte at SKAO, his job doesn't end when diggers cut into the radio-quiet deserts of Australia and South Africa. Technology will keep advancing as fast as it has done in the past decades and with it further improvements will become achievable.
"With these observatories, you refresh some of your technology every five years or so," Schutte said. "So every five years, you have the opportunity to bring in more energy efficiency. I hope that 10 years from now, we will see significant improvements not only in computer technology, but also in energy storage, which is the limit that we have now."
Tereza Pultarova
Tereza is a London-based science and technology journalist, aspiring fiction writer and amateur gymnast. Originally from Prague, the Czech Republic, she spent the first seven years of her career working as a reporter, script-writer and presenter for various TV programmes of the Czech Public Service Television. She later took a career break to pursue further education and added a Master's in Science from the International Space University, France, to her Bachelor's in Journalism and Master's in Cultural Anthropology from Prague's Charles University. She worked as a reporter at the Engineering and Technology magazine, freelanced for a range of publications including Live Science, Space.com, Professional Engineering, Via Satellite and Space News and served as a maternity cover science editor at the European Space Agency.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
Home / News / Lincolnshire pharmacy unveils needle vending machine
Lincolnshire pharmacy unveils needle vending machine
The first pharmacy-based needle exchange dispenser has been launched in Lincolnshire.
Addaction, a charity that supports people to make positive behavioural changes, has introduced a vending machine that dispenses clean needles for drug users, in Riverside pharmacy, Sleaford.
'Ideal solution'
Dimple Oza, senior pharmacist for Addaction Lincolnshire, said: 'Addaction's sterile needle dispenser in Sleaford, although not 100% automated, was considered an ideal solution for numerous reasons.
'For instance, pharmacy staff don't need to handle needles. It's a quicker and easier process for all concerned, frees up pharmacy staff time, takes up no space behind the counter and saves costs on building modifications which may have been necessary in a traditional needle exchange setting.'
At the moment, pharmacies can issue basic needle and syringe packs to drug users as part of the pharmacy-based exchange needle scheme.
The new dispenser aims to tackle the limited provision of needle exchange supplies in Sleaford, which had been without a full needle exchange since September 2017. It also replaces the implementation of a mobile needle exchange provision that might put people at risk.
When a client comes, they place their used needles into a bin and get a token that they put in the machine to obtain their sterilised pack. Each pack contains a harm reduction information leaflet and local contacts for Addaction if the users need help.
Helping drug users
Chris Mulimba, pharmacy superintendent at the Riverside Pharmacy, said that 'drug users should be helped, not judged or stigmatised'.
He said: 'It's safe and secure. People can access sterilised equipment, find local support, hopefully go into recovery and improve their lives.'
Needle exchange services aim to prevent the transmission of blood-borne diseases, such as HIV and Hepatitis C and keep discarded and used syringes off the streets.
The charity hopes that if this pilot is successful, it could 'pave the way for automated and 24-hour dispensers being introduced in other parts of the UK in the future'.


The kitchen is arguably one the most important rooms of the house. It has to be elegant and user friendly at the same time. Unlike any other room, a kitchen has to serve diverse needs of the different members of the family. A kitchen can reflect your personality strongly and very elegantly, in a very neutral and informal manner. Apart from cooking, a kitchen can host small social gatherings, so it is very important to think deeply on kitchen design ideas like either trying to match the or create a contrast between the color of kitchen wall and other walls or home decor. You have to also think about how the colors of different parts of your kitchen go along or not, for example dark floors and countertops require white ceilings and walls. You will have to clearly picture your expectations from your kitchen design ideas while choosing even sinks, faucets and appliances.
A kitchen should be easily accessible, spacious and elegant so can people can cook their food passionately, but enough space and adequate resource are seldom available though one can optimize the available resources by choosing a sensible layout. That means factoring in the room size, platform size and position, sink, refrigerator, appliances, lighting, exhaust and ventilation and storage space. A spacious kitchen layout is basically nothing but placement of various appliances and accessories in the given space in order maximize efficiency. Therefore, a spacious kitchen layout must be based on the rationale of work triangle. A work triangle serves as a basic structure plan for a spacious kitchen layout. It is planning of the kitchen layout with keeping in consideration the three main kitchen workspaces--the refrigerator, sink and stove--and which handles the most traffic and workload.
· Subway tiles: this evergreen option offers a wide range of products. You can go with the tradition or against it by trying some bold designs.
For good kitchen design ideas that will help in remodeling a spacious kitchen layout you need the assistance of a kitchen remodel San Diego. The assistance you will get at kitchen remodel San Diego will be professional, from people who have years of experience in the kitchen remodeling business.