Evaluation of Psychometric Properties of “Level of Parental Emotional Burnout”

Abstract

Introduction. The process of raising a child can be associated with a significant number of chronic stressors that lead to the depletion of parents' mental resources. Parents of a child with disabilities, in addition to the usual stressors associated with the upbringing process, often bear an additional stress load due to the need to implement specialized measures aimed at maintaining the child's health and ensuring normal socialization. This dramatically increases the risk of parental burnout. At the moment, there is an acute shortage of specialized methods for assessing burnout for this contingent. Aims and objectives. The purpose of this study was to assess the psychometric characteristics of this technique “Level of Parental Emotional Burnout” (LPEB/PV), designed with reference to the family relationship context. Materials and Methods. The study involved 138 parents (mean age 36.5; SD = 7.01) of chronically ill children. The assessment of convergent and divergent validity of LPEB/PV was carried out using the methodology for diagnosing attitudes towards a child's illness, a questionnaire of symptomatic complaints (SCL-90-R), a family environment scale (FSS), and the Scale of basic beliefs in adaptation by M.A. Padun and A.V. Kotelnikova. Results. The conducted research showed that the scales of the LPEB/PV methodology corresponded to the developed theoretical construct, that is, it confirmed the construct validity of the methodology. The presented results demonstrate good psychometric characteristics of the LPEB/PV methodology in all studied parameters: re-test reliability and reliability of content samples, internal construct, convergent and divergent cross-validity. It is apparent for the necessity of additional study of the phenomenon from the highly personal engagement of the fight against the child's illness by parents. The scales reflecting this phenomenon found a correlation between the scales diagnosing manifestations of distress in parents with the situation of a child's chronic illness. Conclusion. Based on the results of the primary psychometric test, it can be said that the LPEB/PV method can be used to study emotional burnout in parents of chronically ill children, both in specialized counseling centers and in healthcare facilities where children with disabilities are treated.