TITLE:
Stress and Resources in Women Attending an Inpatient Prevention/Rehabilitation Measure for Parents: Secondary Analysis of Quality Assurance Data
AUTHORS:
Matthias Lukasczik, Christian Gerlich, Michael Schuler, Silke Neuderth, Gabriele Dlugosch, Hermann Faller
KEYWORDS:
Depression, Self-Efficacy, Resource, Parenting Stress, Mothers
JOURNAL NAME:
Open Journal of Medical Psychology,
Vol.4 No.2,
April
7,
2015
ABSTRACT: Questionnaire
data from two projects on the development of quality assurance instruments for
an inpatient rehabilitation/prevention program for parents were used for a
secondary analysis. In this analysis, the associations of gains in a
psychosocial resource (parenting self-efficacy) and two types of stressors
experienced by mothers at the start of treatment (parenting hassles, depressive
symptoms) with general life satisfaction and satisfaction with health at the
end of treatment were explored. Structural equation modeling was applied to
data from N = 1724 female patients. Potential resource-stressor interactions
were tested using the Latent Moderated Structural Equations approach. Results
showed that parenting hassles were negatively associated with general life
satisfaction and satisfaction with health while self-efficacy gains were weakly
positively correlated with both variables. No interaction of parenting hassles
and self-efficacy gains was found. Depressive symptoms were negatively
associated with both satisfaction measures. In these models, self-efficacy
gains were not substantially correlated with life satisfaction, but showed a
small association with satisfaction with health. There was no significant
interaction of depressive symptoms and self-efficacy gains. The findings imply
that interventions for distressed mothers—as exemplarily illustrated by this
inpatient setting—should focus on identifying and reducing initial stressors as
these may continue to impair mothers’ subjective health despite gains in
parenting-related resources.