The Effect of a Telehealth Intervention on Mother-Child's Feeding Interactions During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Purpose: This study evaluated the outcomes of a telehealth intervention aimed at enhancing exchanges in mother-child dyads who showed an impoverishment of the quality of their feeding interactions and a worsening of their psychopathological symptoms during the COVID-19 pandemic. Methods: N=334 mothers and their three-year-old children were recruited to assess their feeding interactions through an observational tool administered via a web platform, and maternal and offspring psychopathological symptoms were measured through the SCL/90-R and the CBCL 1.5-5. This study constitutes the third wave (T3) of a longitudinal research. Results: Our results showed that the intervention significantly improved the quality of mother-child feeding interactions. Moreover, mothers' psychopathological symptoms reduced after the intervention, especially in the interpersonal sensitivity, hostility, depression, anxiety, and obsessive-compulsive-compulsive subscales; offspring emotional/behavioral functioning and dysregulation symptoms also decreased, particularly in the subscales of withdrawn anxious/depressed attention problems and aggressive behavior. Conclusion: This study adds knowledge to the literature on COVID-19 pandemic effects on psychological health of parents and young children, proposing a method of intervention that had been effectively adopted previously but whose effectiveness had not been investigated during the pandemic.