Parental burnout and mental health across COVID-19 parenting circumstances: A person-centered approach

IF 2.7 1区社会学 Q1 FAMILY STUDIES

Journal of Marriage and Family Pub Date : 2025-03-24 DOI:10.1111/jomf.13093

Margaret L. Kerr, Inés Botto, Erika Gonzalez, Sydney Aronson

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引用次数: 0

Abstract

Objective

This study adopted a person-centered approach to exploring whether parental burnout, mental health, and their associations varied across different combinations of parenting circumstances (e.g., children's ages, employment, childcare).

Background

Parental burnout is linked to parents' mental health, but only weakly linked with demographic characteristics, such as age or number of children. However, most research has examined single characteristics in isolation, overlooking how combined characteristics influence parents' balance of parenting risks and resources. The COVID-19 pandemic provided a novel context for understanding links between parenting circumstances, mental health, and parental burnout.

Method

We collected two waves of data in 2020 from 522 parents with a child 12 years or younger. Parents self-reported their demographic characteristics (e.g., family structure, childcare, employment), mental health, and parental burnout symptoms.

Results

Latent class analysis generated five classes that varied primarily across child age and parents' work status. Furloughed parents with young children had the highest burnout and mental health symptoms at both waves. For remote workers with young children and in-person workers with multi-aged children, T1 mental health predicted T2 parental burnout. For stay-at-home parents and remote workers with older children, T1 parental burnout predicted T2 mental health.

Conclusion

Our results suggested that parental burnout, more than mental health, varied based on groups of parenting circumstances, and links between parental burnout and mental health may be context dependent.

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COVID-19育儿环境中的父母倦怠和心理健康：以人为本的方法

目的本研究采用以人为本的方法，探讨父母职业倦怠、心理健康及其相关性在不同养育环境（如儿童年龄、就业、育儿）组合中的差异。父母的职业倦怠与父母的心理健康有关，但与人口统计学特征（如年龄或子女数量）的关系很弱。然而，大多数研究都是孤立地考察了单一的特征，忽视了综合特征如何影响父母在养育风险和资源方面的平衡。COVID-19大流行为理解养育环境、心理健康和父母倦怠之间的联系提供了一个新的背景。方法我们在2020年收集了两波数据，来自522名有12岁及以下孩子的父母。父母自我报告他们的人口统计学特征（如家庭结构、儿童保育、就业）、心理健康和父母倦怠症状。结果潜类分析产生了5个类别，主要在儿童年龄和父母工作状态上存在差异。在两次休假中，带着年幼孩子的父母的倦怠和心理健康症状都最高。对于有年幼子女的远程工作者和有多岁子女的现场工作者，T1心理健康预测T2父母倦怠。对于全职父母和有较大孩子的远程工作者，T1父母倦怠预测T2心理健康。结论父母职业倦怠比心理健康更受不同教养环境的影响，父母职业倦怠与心理健康之间的联系可能与环境有关。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

Journal of Marriage and Family Multiple-

CiteScore

12.20

自引率

6.70%

发文量

期刊介绍： For more than 70 years, Journal of Marriage and Family (JMF) has been a leading research journal in the family field. JMF features original research and theory, research interpretation and reviews, and critical discussion concerning all aspects of marriage, other forms of close relationships, and families.In 2009, an institutional subscription to Journal of Marriage and Family includes a subscription to Family Relations and Journal of Family Theory & Review.