Effects of Parenting Efficacy, Parenting Alliance Inventory, and Social Support on Mothers' Health and Parenting Stress

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to understand the effects of parenting self-efficacy, parenting alliance inventory, and social support on health and parenting stress of mothers raising infant and young children. Data collection was performed for a total of 279 subjects using a structured questionnaire administered through a mobile device from August 2-30, 2018. Independent t-test, ANOVA, Scheffe's test, and hierarchical regression analysis were used for data analysis using SPSS 21.0. In this study, the effect on health and parenting stress was confirmed by classifying microsystems as parenting self-efficacy centered on an ecological point of view, the mesosystem as the parenting alliance inventory, and the exosystem as social support. In health and parenting stress, microsystem (affective efficacy, daily system organization efficacy, discipline efficacy) and parent-child dysfunctional interactions were correlated with meso system (affective efficacy, discipline efficacy, game efficacy, educational efficacy) and exosystem (parenting alliance inventory). For the difficult child, microsystem (game efficacy, discipline efficacy, education efficacy), mesosystem (parenting Alliance inventory), and exosystem (physical support) were found to be significant. In particular, mothers raising a difficult child were found to need help not only from the family unit but also from society. Therefore, in order to reduce the mother's health and parenting stress, it is necessary to increase the husband's alliance inventory, increase the mother's sense of discipline efficacy and education efficacy, provide emotional support rather than physical support, and at the same time build a social support network for easy access to childcare facilities. This study is meaningful in that it identified the factors that influence health and parenting stress based on ecological theory and provides basic data for further research on health and parenting stress.