Sibling Disclosure and Adolescents' Coping From Before to During the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Longitudinal Study

The extraordinary disruptions associated with the COVID-19 pandemic created a unique context to investigate the links between family communication and adolescent adjustment. Given that widespread stay-at-home orders increased time spent in the family setting, the present study examined reciprocal links between older and younger adolescent siblings' disclosure toward each other and concurrent and prospective links between those disclosures and their own and their siblings' coping from before to during the early stages of COVID-19 pandemic. Participants were two adolescent-aged siblings (older siblings: 51% female, M = 15.67 years; younger siblings: 48% female, M = 13.14 years) and one parent (85% mothers, M = 45.15 years) from 682 families (N = 2,046) in five Midwestern states in the United States. Participants completed web-based assessments on three occasions: Time 1 (March 2019-February 2020), Time 2 (May 2020-June 2020), and Time 3 (July 2020-February 2021). Using structural equation modeling, results revealed that the prospective reciprocal linkages between older and younger siblings' disclosures were often moderated by the gender composition of the sibling dyad. Further, older and younger siblings' disclosures were both concurrently associated with their own coping during the pandemic but not prospectively associated with later perceived coping. There were mixed findings regarding the actor and partner associations between siblings' disclosure and adolescents' perceived coping. Results emphasize the complexity and bidirectional nature of sibling disclosure and the potential protective effects of disclosing to siblings in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic.