Development and Reliability and Validity Test to the Parenting Stress Questionnaire for Two-Child Mothers

Abstract

China is getting old before it gets rich. Among women of childbearing age, there seems to be little interest in having multiple children, and parenting stress may be one of the reasons. There are differences in the parenting stress felt by mothers with one child and those with two, but there is no questionnaire specifically aimed at the parenting stress felt by mothers of multiples in China. The purpose of the present study is to develop and verify a questionnaire specifically aimed at measuring the stress of two-child mothers in the Chinese context. We chose mothers as participants who were younger than 50 years old and their second child were younger than 18 years old as participants. The initial questionnaire was created after analyzing the results of 83 participants’ open questionnaires and 16 participants’ qualitative interviews. Item analysis and exploratory factor analysis were conducted with 279 participants. The final questionnaire was created after conducting reliability and validity tests on the responses of 263 participants to 23 items on the questionnaire covering four factors: characteristics of mother, environmental factor, characteristics of child, and relationship between the two siblings. The results of confirmatory factor analysis indicated that the four-factor model fit well (χ2/df = 2.00, CFI = 0.91, TLI = 0.90, SRMR = 0.06, RMSEA = 0.06). McDonald’s omega coefficients and split-half reliability coefficients both ranged from 0.50 to 0.95. The questionnaire scores were significantly positively correlated with parental burnout, the regret of having a second child and parenting stress, and were significantly negatively correlated with the intention of having a third child and support for the three-child policy. Overall, the present study confirmed the reliability and validity of the parenting stress questionnaire for two-child mothers, which can be used to measure the parenting stress experienced by mothers of multiples in China.

Relationships between job satisfaction, organizational commitment, burnout and job performance of healthcare professionals in a district-level health care system of Shenzhen, China

“…And the studies implied that disproportionate burden of household duties, lack of leadership opportunities, lack of support during maternity leave and lactation had tremendous effect on female physicians’ experience with job satisfaction and burnout ( Jia et al, 2013 ; Yeluru et al, 2022 ). In the past decades, family planning policy in China has undergone gradual adjustment, from one-child policy to two-child policy for couples who were both one-child, to two-child policy for all couples, and to three-child policy for all couples ( Zhang et al, 2022 ). Under the three-child family planning policy, statutory paid maternity leave and fair promotion opportunities might improve job satisfaction and performance and reduce turnover of women workers, especially for female nurses.…”

Type of Family Support for Infant and Toddler Care That Relieves Parenting Stress: Does the Number of Children Matter?

“…More and more mothers of young children enter the labor force, and families face challenges regarding the balance between parenting and work [3,4]. Traditional systems of infant and toddler care have been weakened, and members of the "sandwich generation" who need to take care of old people and young children shoulder an increased burden of responsibility for care [5][6][7]. The care of young children under 3 years old in China has traditionally been undertaken within the family; external sources of family support for infant and toddler care are particularly scarce [8,9].…”

“…The care of young children under 3 years old in China has traditionally been undertaken within the family; external sources of family support for infant and toddler care are particularly scarce [8,9]. Since the enactment of the two-child policy and the newly enacted threechild policy in mainland China [7,10], the traditional mother-dominated childcare model cannot be sustained, and the problem of caring for children under 3 years old needs to be solved urgently.…”

“…In the long term, this pattern may also affect China's fertility levels [18,19]. Previous studies have investigated family support for childcare and parenting stress separately [7,20]. However, there is a lack of research in the context of the three-child policy [12,21], and previous studies have not considered the characteristics of family structure changes [22].…”

Analysis of scores of Symptom Checklist 90 (SCL-90) questionnaire of 182 parents of children with spinal muscular atrophy: a cross-sectional study

“…Parents may experience negative emotions such as unease, fear, worry, and anxiety during parenthood due to their own problems, parent-child relationships, the family environment, and other factors (1,2). It has been reported that fathers may also develop negative feelings and fear even during the perinatal period (3).…”