An examination of the relationship among working mothers' work stress, parental stress, psychological resilience, and mental health

The stress factor directly affects both the work and social life of individuals. When individuals take on the additional role of parenthood, this stress factor increases and the work-life balance undergoes a major change. While working mothers try to adapt to this new order, the possibility of being negatively affected both psychologically and physically increases. Taken as a whole, the stress that occurs in working life negatively affects the mental health of mothers by affecting their parenting roles. In addition, this stress situation may also affect the positive attachment between mother and child. This situation may lead to a sense of inadequacy and tensions in family life over time. From another perspective, stress can lead to lack of attention, decreased productivity and significant decreased work performance in working mothers. This study examines the relation between work stress, parental stress, psychological resilience, mental health of working mothers. The study consists of three parts. In the first part of the research, the theoretical framework was discussed. In the second part, the background of the research was given. In this section, the details of the research problem, research question, research model and research hypotheses are explained. In the third part of the research, independent samples T-Test and ANOVA analysis were applied to compare the variables of work stress, parental stress, mental health and psychological resilience with demographic data. Pearson correlation analysis and regression analysis were performed to examine the relationship between variables. The data obtained in the study were analyzed with SPSS 21 program. In the last section, the findings are interpreted. The research was conducted with 302 volunteer participants, consisting of mothers working in the service industry, including the public and private sectors in Turkey. Convenience sampling method was used and data was submitted via online survey. It has been determined that work stress and parental stress negatively affect mental health, while psychological resilience has a positive effect on mental health. It has been analyzed that there is a negative relationship between work stress and parental stress and mental health, but a positive relationship between psychological resilience and mental health. When working mothers were examined according to demographic differences, it was determined that women with managerial roles were stronger in terms of mental health and psychological resilience than women without managerial roles. It has been observed that mothers working in the private sector are exposed to more work stress than mothers working in the public sector.