Introduction
COVID-19-related stress, AD, affective dysregulation
VIRUS
Following the first reported cases of COVID-19 in China in December 2019, the virus spread rapidly across the world (As a result of these measures, families were faced with persistent changes to their daily life. In accordance with these changes, empirical data suggest a negative effect of the COVID-19 crisis on the mental health of children and parents/caregivers/guardians (henceforth ‘caregivers’). Studies applying various operationalizations of stress found that 15–71% of children [Generally, stress is experienced when objective and subjective external or internal demands exceed an individual’s resources [Children with affective dysregulation (AD) show a pattern of both an elevated use of maladaptive emotion regulation strategies and heightened emotional reactivity [Considering the potentially increased stress levels due to COVID-19, access to psychotherapeutic care might be particularly essential [To be able to adequately support families in times of COVID-19, it is necessary to identify risk and protective factors for COVID-19-related stress. The most commonly reported risk factors in studies focusing on COVID-19-related stress are sociodemographic variables such as higher or lower age of child, higher parental age, female or male gender of child, female gender of parent, higher educational level of child, lower socioeconomic status, and migration background (e.g. [