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This study examined the association between prenatal role overload and maternal responsiveness, with postnatal depressive symptoms as a mediator.Participants were 127 first-time mothers in Hong Kong (Time 1 prenatal role overload was not directly predictive of later responsiveness (B = -0.06,Findings highlighted that more attention is required to the support provided to first-time expectant mothers to prevent role overload, and that intervention for postnatal depressive symptoms may focus on role overload. The findings also highlighted that postnatal depressive symptoms could be a promising way to increase maternal responsiveness.

Background In the face of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, families with young children are bombarded with new challenges and stressors. This study examined the additive and interactive effects of parental stress and negative emotions during COVID-19 on parents’ severity of depressive symptoms. Methods Participants were 221 Chinese families involving maritally intact mothers and fathers of preschool-aged children. Discussion Path analysis indicated that mothers’ parental stress interacted with their negative emotions, such that their stress was related to their severity of depressive symptoms only when negative emotions were high. By comparison, fathers’ stress and negative emotions were additively associated with their severity of depressive symptoms. Supporting the cumulative risk model, parental stress during COVID-19 and negative emotions were linked to parents’ severity of depressive symptoms additively or interactively, depending on the gender of the parent. These findings inform practitioners about the relevance of parents’ stress and negative emotions to their severity of depressive symptoms during the pandemic.

The current letter provides the backdrop context of the study "Intention to vaccinate young children against COVID-19: a large-scale survey of Hong Kong parents" conducted when the COVID-19 vaccination was first made available to young children in Hong Kong during the fifth wave of the outbreak. The study was conducted to examine parents' intention for informing the development of an effective child COVID-19 vaccine program because parents were speculated to have low intention to vaccinate their children against COVID-19.

COVID-19 vaccines (Sinovac and Pfizer/BioNTech) have recently been approved for Hong Kong children. Understanding parental intentions to vaccinate children against COVID-19 is important to the development of an effective COVID-19 vaccine campaign. From a large-scale, geographically representative dataset in Hong Kong (