Counter-intuitively, sociodemographic characteristics account for a small proportion of explained variance in parental burnout. The present study conducted during the Covid-19 pandemic asks whether (i) sociodemographic characteristics are more predictive of parental burnout than usual in a situation of lockdown, (ii) situational factors, that is, the specific restrictive living conditions inherent in the context of lockdown, predict parental burnout better than sociodemographic characteristics do, and (iii) the impact of both sociodemographic and situational factors is moderated or mediated by the parents’ subjective perception of the impact that the health crisis has had on their parenting circumstances. Results show that, within the context of lockdown, both sociodemographic and situational factors explain a negligible proportion of variance in parental burnout. By contrast, parents’ cognitive appraisals of their parenthood within the context of the health crisis were found to play both a crucial mediating and moderating role in the prediction of parental burnout. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (10.1007/s12144-021-02629-z) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Background: The etiological model of parental burnout, that is, the Balance Between Risks and Resources (BR 2 ) , posits that the syndrome results from a chronic imbalance between parental stressaggravating and parental stress-relieving factors. Empirical evidence which has accumulated thus far suggests further investigating the internal structure of BR 2 . Goals: The present study examines 1) the reliability indexes of the BR 2 instrument and 2) further investigates whether the instrument would host a general latent factor which would capture the parent's cognitive appraisals. Method: A sample of 1473 parents took part in the study. Two factor models were tested: a unidimensional model (with the subjective perception as the unique latent structure to BR 2 items) and a bifactor model composed of one general latent factor (i.e., the parent's subjective perception) and several specific latent factors which correspond to the different factors measured in BR 2 (e.g., emotional competence, the relationship between the parent and the child, co-parenting, etc.). Results: Findings showed that the unidimensional model poorly fitted the data and that the bifactor model failed to explain the dataset (no convergence achieved). Conclusion: Parents' answers to BR 2 are not underlain by a common and general tendency to interpret their parenting situation in either a general positive or a general negative way.

As it often applies to other mental conditions, one may posit that cognitive appraisals might be causal in the onset and maintenance of parental burnout. Recent studies have indeed highlighted that negative cognitive appraisals are positively associated with parental burnout. Howbeit, none of these studies being experimental in design, it has—thus far—been impossible to establish causality. To shed light on the question, the present study relied on an experimental design where the perception of three known antecedents of parental burnout was manipulated: co-parenting support, emotion regulation and child-rearing practices. 313 French- and English-speaking parents took part in the study which employed a 4 (Condition: control, perceived co-parenting support, perceived emotion regulation, perceived efficacy of child-rearing practices) × 2 (Time: pre- and post-manipulation) mixed-design, with Condition as the between-subject factor and Time as the within-subject factor. Results showed that the experimental manipulation was effective in the “co-parenting support” condition solely and this effective manipulation further yielded a significant effect on the decrease of parental burnout scores, hence suggesting a causative relation between cognitive appraisals and parental burnout. Our results highlight both the complexity of manipulating parents’ cognitive appraisals and the scope for relieving partnered parents from their parental burnout symptoms.