Impacto do isolamento social provocado pela pandemia de Covid-19 no desempenho ocupacional de mães de crianças com desenvolvimento típico e atípico no Brasil

Abstract

The lockdown from Covid-19 pandemic brought impacts to the life of many people. Even that this kind of restriction is a type of strategy to inhibit the disease transmission, it contributed to prejudices in finances, physical and emotional health. In special, to women that are mothers - this event increased the household, changes in work schedule to home offices and homeschooling of their children. This transversal and exploratory study was realized with the objective of investigate the lockdown impact in the occupational performance of Brazilian mothers, and to compare the differences of its effects between mothers of typical development children (MTD) and mothers with disabled and/or development disorders (MDD). An online questionary was elaborated to collect the sociodemographic information and occupational performance alterations after the lockdown beginning; the questionary was disclosed among its participants by the “snowball” sampling method. In total, 1070 women, mothers of children between 3 to 12 years, composed the study, with their mean age being 38±5,77 years; 84,9% being married, 63,4% having post-graduation, and family income corresponding to the B2 social class (64,3%). Of the total sample, 818 (76,5%) are from the MTD portion, and 252 (23,5%) from the MDD. Both group mothers presented significant involvement in: bathing/showering (p<,001), sexual activity (p<,001), care of pets and animals (p=0,019), financial management (p=0,001), home establishment and management (p=0,008), meal preparation and cleanup (p=0,004), shopping (p=0,02), safety and emergency maintenance (p=0,031), social and emotional health promotion and maintenance (p=0,004), symptom and condition management (p<,001), communication with the healthcare system (p<,001), medication management (p=0,005) and sleep participation (p<,001). Comparatively, the mothers from the MDD group presented a higher percentage of worsening in all occupations, than the MTD group, and also, a higher probability of more prejudices in bathing/showering (OR=2,43), sexual activity (OR=2,10), care of pets and animals (OR=2,08), financial management (OR=1,91), home establishment and management (OR 1,65), meal preparation and cleanup (OR=1,41), shopping (OR=1,65), safety and emergency maintenance (OR=1,66), social and emotional health promotion and maintenance (OR=1,59), symptom and condition management (OR=2,20), communication with the healthcare system (OR=2,29), medication management (OR=2,06) and sleep participation (OR=2,17). The results indicates that the lockdown period and the interruption of health and education activities generated maternal overwhelm, causing prejudices in occupational performance. Furthermore, the study shows that the MDD were more affected, reinforcing that these women were, previously, more overwhelmed than the MTD, and the pandemic and the lockdown strategy aggravated this situation.