IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/aph/ajpbhl/10.2105-ajph.2006.088161_4.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Parenting-related stressors and self-reported mental health of mothers with young children

Author

Listed:
  • Mistry, R.
  • Stevens, G.D.
  • Sareen, H.
  • De Vogli, R.
  • Halfon, N.

Abstract

Objectives. We assessed whether there were associations between maternal mental health and individual and co-occurring parenting stressors related to social and financial factors and child health care access. Methods. We used cross-sectional data from the 2000 National Survey of Early Childhood Health. The 5-item Mental Health Inventory was used to measure self-reported mental health. Results. After we controlled for demographic covariates, we found that the following stressors increased the risk of poor maternal mental health: lack of emotional (odds ratio [OR] = 3.4; 95% confidence interval [CI] = 2.0, 5.9) or functional (OR = 2.2; 95% CI = 1.3, 3.7) social support for parenting, too much time spent with child (OR = 3.5; 95% CI = 2.0, 6.1), and difficulty paying for child care (OR = 2.3; 95% CI = 1.4, 3.9). In comparison with mothers without any parenting stressors, mothers reporting 1 stressor had 3 times the odds of poor mental health (OR = 3.1; 95% CI = 2.1, 4.8), and mothers reporting 2 or more stressors had nearly 12 times the odds (OR = 11.7; 95% CI = 7.1, 19.3). Conclusions. If parenting stressors such as those examined here are to be addressed, changes may be required in community support systems, and improvements in relevant social policies may be needed.

Suggested Citation

  • Mistry, R. & Stevens, G.D. & Sareen, H. & De Vogli, R. & Halfon, N., 2007. "Parenting-related stressors and self-reported mental health of mothers with young children," American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, vol. 97(7), pages 1261-1268.
    • Handle: RePEc:aph:ajpbhl:10.2105/ajph.2006.088161_4
    DOI: 10.2105/AJPH.2006.088161
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.2105/AJPH.2006.088161
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.2105/AJPH.2006.088161?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. van Mourik, K. & Crone, M.R. & Reis, R., 2018. "Relevance of the intervention module “Coping with stress and unhelpful emotions” for parents living in multi-ethnic deprived neighborhoods," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 88(C), pages 426-433.
    2. Vered Ben David, 2021. "Associations between Parental Mental Health and Child Maltreatment: The Importance of Family Characteristics," Social Sciences, MDPI, vol. 10(6), pages 1-13, May.
    3. Ayllón, Sara & Ferreira-Batista, Natalia N., 2015. "‘Mommy, I miss daddy’. The effect of family structure on children's health in Brazil," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 19(C), pages 75-89.
    4. Stefanie Sperlich & Sonja Arnhold-Kerri & Siegfried Geyer, 2011. "What accounts for depressive symptoms among mothers? The impact of socioeconomic status, family structure and psychosocial stress," International Journal of Public Health, Springer;Swiss School of Public Health (SSPH+), vol. 56(4), pages 385-396, August.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:aph:ajpbhl:10.2105/ajph.2006.088161_4. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Christopher F Baum (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.apha.org .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.