Investigation of parental burnout precursors in mothers with preschool children

Although parenting is associated with positive outcomes such as adding joy, meaning and satisfaction to life in most cultures and societies, it is also an important source of stress. Parental burnout is defined as a specific syndrome that occurs in parents who are constantly exposed to the stress factors caused by being a parent. Despite parental burnout can have a negative impact on the parent's own life in a wide range from the psychological well-being of the parents to sleep disorders, there are findings indicating that this syndrome may cause significant problems not only in the parent but also in the relationship of the parent with their partner and on the child. The main purpose of this thesis study is to determine the antecedents that determine the parental burnout of mothers who have children in the preschool period (3-6 years old). This study, which was carried out in the relational screening model by using online questionnaires, was carried out on 289 mothers who were reached by the snowball sampling method. Data were collected from the Demographic Information Form prepared by the researchers, Parental Burnout Assessment (Arikan, Üstündağ-Budak, Akgun, Mikoljczak, & Roskam, 2020), Co-Parenting Scale (Özdemir, Sağkal, Engin, Şakiroğlu, & Çevik, 2021), Berkeley Parental Self-Efficacy Scale (Yıldız, Şahin, Haktanır, & Holloway, 2021), and Economic Measures Index (Ergül-Topçu & Güre, 2021). As a result of the analysis, demographic variables; it was seen that the education level of the mother, the number of children and financial concerns predicted parental burnout positively and the age of the child negatively predicted parental burnout. When the other variables included in the analysis were examined, it was determined that parental self-efficacy, co-parenting and marital happiness negatively predicted parental burnout. The findings obtained were discussed within the scope of the related field literature and suggestions were made.