Childhood Effortful Control and Adherence to Physical Distancing During COVID-19 Pandemic: A 10-Year Follow-Up Study

Many factors, including personality characteristics, can influence physical distancing during pandemics. However, no longitudinal research has studied the relationship between temperament dimensions and physical distancing. Therefore, this study aimed to investigate childhood temperament dimensions as predictors of later difficulty in physical distancing during the COVID-19 pandemic. The initial sample included 2208 children and young adolescents from the Brazilian High-Risk Cohort Study (BHRC). The Brazilian Portuguese self-report version of the Early Temperament Questionnaire-Revised Version (EATQ-R) assessed temperament dimensions at baseline: effortful control (EC), fear, frustration, shyness, and surgency. The factor structure of EATQ-R was generated by confirmatory factor analysis. In addition, difficulty in physical distancing was evaluated during the COVID-19 pandemic, ten years after baseline. Logistic regression models were used to determine temperament associations with difficulty distancing. The best-fitting solution for the EATQ-R structure was a bifactor model that captured a general factor representing a negative self-evaluation dimension and five residual specific temperament dimensions. EC dimension emerged as a factor associated with lower difficulty in adhering to physical distancing (OR = 0.823, 95% CI: 0.691–0.979, p < 0.029). These results suggests that EC dimension can be a potential target for early intervention strategy for increasing adherence to safety measures during pandemics.