Kinship caregiver’s trauma experiences relationship with parenting stress and dispositional resilience

Children are preferentially placed in kinship care when they can no longer stay in the care of their biological parents. Parenting a kinship child presents unique challenges and stressors. Understanding the factors that contribute to caregiver stress and resilience is important to help caregivers persevere through the challenges of caregiving. A cross-sectional observational study was conducted utilizing a convenience snowball sampling process on social media platforms between July and August 2023. Participants were kinship caregivers, over 18 years old, caring for a kinship child and residing in the United States. Demographic and descriptive caregiver information, Trauma History Questionnaire, Parental Stress Scale, and Dispositional Resilience Scale were collected. Data analysis included one-way analysis of variance with post hoc multiple comparison tests to determine associations between demographic variables and caregiver stress and resilience. Multiple linear regression was used to determine the association between past traumas and parenting stress and resilience, adjusting for demographic and other significant variables. Of the 130 kinship caregivers, over 63 % had 4 or more past traumatic experiences, with a median of 5.0. Past traumas were a significant factor in both caregivers’ parental stress and dispositional resilience scores. For every increase in kinship caregiver trauma, the parent stress scale increased by 0.67 (95 % 0.15, 1.19), and the dispositional resilience scale decreased by 0.38 points (95 % CI −0.65, −0.12) after adjusting for the effects of other variables. This study highlights the need to understand the intergenerational effects of trauma on kinship caregivers and the children entrusted into their care.