Chronic stress, anxiety, and depression can have many adverse effects on physical health, including immunosuppression and increased susceptibility to disease. For the last year, the world has endured sustained stress caused by the COVID-19 pandemic which has had its own impact on mental health. Stress from COVID-19 will likely have an even greater impact on the Infant and Early Childhood Mental Health (IECMH) workforce due to the stressful nature of their work. Self-care has been shown to improve overall wellbeing and act as a buffer for stress. Therefore, the current study aims to investigate if IECMH workers with clinically significant depression and/or anxiety are more susceptible to contracting COVID-19. Furthermore, this study will examine whether the utilization of self-care has an impact on perceived stress. The sample includes members of the Tennessee IECMH workforce (n = 121, 98% female, modal age range 30-39 years) surveyed in the summer of 2020. The results indicated that self-care was significantly negatively correlated with perceived stress, and exploratory analyses were conducted to further investigate mental health during the COVID-19 pandemic. This study adds to our understanding of the effects of self-care on perceived stress and the prevalence of mental health symptoms in the IECMH workforce in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, although it is important to continue to study the effects of self-care and its ability to mitigate negative physical and mental health outcomes, as well as the impact of COVID-19 on mental health.

Infant and Early Childhood Mental Health (IECMH) providers engage in uniquely relational work with high-risk families that expose them to the full advantages (i.e., compassion satisfaction [CS]) and disadvantages (e.g., burn-out [BO]) of a helper role. Though the pandemic seemed poised to escalate disadvantage, most early pandemic studies found high CS alongside elevated BO. Unfortunately, as COVID-19 has continued, CS has declined while BO has increased. Given the delayed COVID-19 impact on children, these changes may be particularly acute for IECMH providers. Using a longitudinal cohort of 27 IECMH providers, this study aimed to describe and quantify changes in professional wellbeing and contributing factors over a 12-month period (T1 – T12) from early to mid-pandemic. Little changed from T1 to T12 for IECMH provider CS (M = 41.33 vs. M = 41.08) or BO (M = 22.22 vs. M = 22.65) scores. Variables known to contribute to CS similarly held when T1 was compared to T12, but they fluctuated considerably and non-linearly between these time points. Variable relationships with CS also changed over time necessitating an adjusted hierarchal regression model. This model accounted for 20% of variance in T12 CS. Pandemic experiences like loss are reported; needs/supports are summarized using content analysis. Results underscore the importance of cohort, multi-time point design and the need for non-linear analysis to contextualize the interplay of shared and individual experiences within COVID-19. Implications for maintaining IECMH professional wellbeing moving forward and improving the health of other fields are discussed.