Describe the research question studied in the article.

What are the hypothesis for the study? If the researchers have not stated hypotheses, what will be your hypothesis for the study?

List and describe the variables of the study (e.g., independent and dependent variables). How were the variables measured? (nominal, interval, ratio, ordinal)

J Child Fam Stud (2018) 27:602-614 DOI 10.1007/s10826-017-0892-4 CrossMark ORIGINAL PAPER Exhausted Parents: Sociodemographic, Child-Related, Parent- Related, Parenting and Family-Functioning Correlates of Parental Burnout Moira Mikolajczak ' . Marie-Emilie Raes . Herve Avalosse . Isabelle Roskam Published online: 7 October 2017 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2017 Abstract Parental burnout is a specific syndrome resulting Parenting has been shown to be both complex and stressful from enduring exposure to chronic parenting stress. It (for reviews, see Abidin and Abidin 1990; Cmic and Low encompasses three dimensions: an overwhelming exhaus- 2002; Deater-Deckard 2008). Parenthood-related specific tion related to one's parental role, an emotional distancing stressors include daily hassles (e.g., chores, homework, with one's children and a sense of ineffectiveness in one's home-school-extracurricular activities journeys), acute stres- parental role. This study aims to facilitate further identifi- sors (e.g., a child choking, an adolescent running away) and cation of antecedents/risk factors for parental burnout in chronic stressors (e.g., a child with behavioral, learning or order to inform prevention and intervention practices. In a mood disorders; a child with a chronic or serious illness). sample of 1723 french-speaking parents, we examined the Whatever its source (environmental, child and/or parental relationship between parental burnout and 38 factors characteristics), chronic parenting stress has negative con- belonging to five categories: sociodemographics, particular sequences, not only on the parent's well-being (Kwok and rities of the child, stable traits of the parent, parenting and Wong 2000) but also on parenting practices (Assel et al. family-functioning. In 862 parents, we first examined how 2002), parent-child interaction and child development (e.g., far these theoretically relevant risk factors correlate with Cric et al. 2005; Feldman et al. 2004). It is also significantly burnout. We then examined their relative weight in pre- detrimental to marital relationships (Lavee et al. 1996) dicting burnout and the amount of total explained variance. In organizational behavior literature, it has been shown We kept only the significant factors to draw a preliminary that when chronic stress lasts too long, it depletes model of risk factors for burnout and tested this model on employees' resources, eventually leading to burnout, which another sample of 861 parents. The results suggested that corresponds to a collapse of the ability to cope with stress. parental burnout is a multi-determined syndrome mainly This collapse is evident at the psychological level but also at predicted by three sets of factors: parent's stable traits, the physiological level (Pruessner et al. 1999). The indivi- parenting and family-functioning. dual therefore lacks the necessary resources to cope with stressors, which explains that burnout is even more detri- Keywords Parent . Burn-out . Exhaustion . Antecedents . mental than chronic stress. Research conducted on job Causes burnout shows that it has dramatic effects on employees mental health (increasing the risk of alcohol dependence- Ahola et al. 2006-and depression-Hakanen et al. 2008) as well as on physical health (increasing the risk of serious health conditions-Ahola et al. 2009; Melamed et al. 2006 Moira Mikolajczak -and premature death-Ahola et al. 2010). Beyond moira. mikolajczak@uclouvain.be affecting the individuals concerned, burnout also impacts Department of Psychology, Universite catholique de Louvain, the organization and its clients by increasing the frequency Place Cardinal Mercier 10, 1348 Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium of errors (West et al. 2006) and augmenting neglectful Research and Development Department, Mutualite Chretienne- behaviors (Pillemer and Bachman-Prehn 1991) and even Christelijke Mutualiteit, Brussels, Belgium abuse (Borteyrou and Paillard 2014). SpringerJ Child Fam Stud (2018) 27:602-614 611 attachment, improving marital satisfaction, co-parenting and studies can build, it is not exempt from limitations. First, the parenting practices would reduce parental burnout. For each data were collected through an open invitation and we had of these factors, there exist targeted, validated and efficient therefore no control over response rate and self-selection. interventions. As far as parents' stable traits are concerned, Because the study was entitled "Being a parent in the 21st the literature has shown that although these traits are rela- century", it is likely that only parents interested in parenting tively stable, they can be changed through interventions (see issues responded to the survey. Therefore, it is unclear Roberts et al. 2017 for review). Interventions exist to whether results can generalize to parents with no interest in improve emotional competencies that have been shown to their parenting role. Second, the brevity of the personality decrease neuroticism and burnout symptoms (e.g., Karahan measure (i.e., two items per dimension) may make the and Yalcin 2009: Kotsou et al. 2011; Nelis et al. 2011). results a little less reliable. Third, we voluntarily excluded There also exist efficient interventions to improve attach- from the study (and from the model) the stressors that ment, even in patients with severe attachment disorders people face in other domains of their life (e.g., work stress, such as borderline patients (e.g., Levy et al. 2006); as noted conflicts with extended family or neighbors, conviction and by Chaffin et al. (2006), there are a lot of inefficient and other major life events): there are so many of these that it even harmful attachment therapies, but Transference- was impossible to consider them all. Fourth, the model does focused therapy (Foelsch and Kernberg 1998; Yeomans not take into account the wider context in which parents live et al. 2013) and Schema Therapy (Young et al. 2003) have (e.g., more or less advantaged community; cultural values). received convincing empirical validation. As regards par- Yet, these two categories of factors probably explain part of enting, interventions exist to improve parent self-efficacy the variance left unexplained by the model (it currently (Roskam et al. 2015) and parenting practices, and these explains 57% of the variance in parental burnout). Finally, have proven their efficacy even with the most difficult whereas the qualitative interviews that we have conducted children (see Mouton et al. 2017 for a meta-analysis). so far seem to corroborate current findings, they also sug- Finally, there are also efficient interventions to improve co- gest that we failed to include in the model one stable parenting (e.g., Linares et al. 2006) and marital satisfaction parent characteristic that could potentially play an important (e.g., Christensen et al. 2010). Because each burnout has its role in parental burnout: high parental standards. An own history, researchers should pay attention to the fit impressive proportion of burned-out parents that we inter- between the intervention and the parent: the intervention viewed seem to have very high parental standards (which may be more efficient if it is preceded by a comprehensive come either from a more generally perfectionist personality analysis of the parent's specific risk factors (There is no or from an unhappy childhood that they do not want to point in targeting emotional competence if the parent's main reproduce). It is therefore possible that the part of variance problem is poor parenting practices). explained by parents' stable characteristics is greater than As a note of caution to researchers interested in devel- we have shown. oping interventions to help burn-out parents, the targeted These limitations leave ample room for future research to interventions that may stem from the model proposed in this probe and refine our findings. In addition to conducting paper should not mask the importance of active listening cross-cultural research to identify macrosystemic ante- and the therapeutic relationship. The qualitative research cedents of parental burnout and to conducting cross-lagged that we are conducting in parallel to quantitative research longitudinal and experimental intervention research to shows that burned-out parents feel particularly guilty (for no refine our understanding of causality links and processes longer being the parent they wanted to be; for wanting to among all types of parents, future studies should also con- take a break from parenting; for yelling at their children centrate on uncovering antecedents that play a specific role and, sometimes, neglecting or hitting them) and ashamed in specific categories of parents. Lindhal Norberg and col- (because they think something is wrong with them, that leagues have already done so among parents with chroni- people will think they are bad mothers or bad fathers). cally and/or severely ill-children. One of their studies Therefore, therapeutic attitudes such as empathy and an (Lindstrom et al. 2011) suggested for instance that among unconditional positive regard seem particularly important the latter parents (whose child's future is uncertain because when working with these parents, as they are a prerequisite of the disease), a high need for control may be a vulner- to open a safe space where parents can express their emo- ability factor for burnout. Other categories of parents (e.g., tions and difficulties. single parents, step-parents, gays and lesbian parents) may also each have specific antecedents in addition to the more Limitations and Future Research Directions general factors examined here. Refining the antecedent model for each category may help clinicians focus on the While the current study has the merit of providing a appropriate factors in each case. knowledge base on which longitudinal and experimental 2 SpringerJ Child Fam Stud (2018) 27:602-614 603 While extensive research has been conducted on job The following sociodemographic factors could increase burnout (more than 23,000 studies to date), parental burnout the risk of burnout: being a women (because women are has only very recently become the focus of scientific interest generally more involved in children's care and upbringing (see Pelsma 19891989 for the only exception before 2007) than men; see also Lindahl Norberg 2007), having several with empirical evidence that parenting stress can lead to children (because each additional child increases demands parental burnout (Lindahl Norberg et al. 2014; Lindstrom on the parent; Lundberg et al. 1994), having very young et al. 2011; Lindahl Norberg 2007, 2010). Like job burnout, children (because young children cannot take care of parental burnout encompasses three dimensions. The first is themselves), being a single parent (because chores and overwhelming exhaustion related to one's parental role: responsibilities cannot be shared), having a blended family parents feel that being a parent requires too much involve- (because stepchildren may refuse their stepparent's author- ment; they feel tired when getting up in the morning and ity; Baxter et al. 2004), having inadequate living space having to face another day with their children; they feel (because lack of space prevents parents from having their emotionally drained by the parental role to the extent that own area and the possibility of getting away from noisy or thinking about their role as parents makes them feel they boisterous children), having a low household income or have reached the end of their tether. The second dimension is having financial difficulties (because these make an number an emotional distancing with their children: exhausted par- of resources unaffordable: babysitting services, extra- ents become less and less involved in the upbringing and the curricular activities; etc.), being unemployed (because this relationship with their children; they do the bare minimum prevents the parent from having another source of pre- for the children but no more; the interactions are limited to occupation or self-esteem), working part-time (because the functional/instrumental aspects at the expenses of the emo- parent spends more time taking care of the children; Zick tional aspects. The third dimension is a sense of ineffec and Bryant 1996) or working more than 9 h per day tiveness in the parental role: parents feel that they cannot (overwork may reduce temporal and emotional resources handle problems calmly and/or effectively. As for job burn- for dealing with children's problems). By either increasing out, parental burnout can be treated as a continuous variable, demand (e.g., having young children) or reducing resources but people are considered as being "in burnout" only if they (e.g., having a low household income) or both (e.g., being a reach a certain threshold (i.e., PBI score above 67 in the case single parent), these factors may increase vulnerability to of parental burnout). As shown recently by Roskam et al. parent burnout. (2017), parental burnout is a unique syndrome, empirically Because some of the child's particular characteristics distinct from job burnout, parental stress or depression. may increase demands on parents, the following factors Research on parental burnout is still in its infancy but could increase the risk for burnout: having a child with studies to date have shown that it can be reliably measured behavioral, emotional or learning disorders (because of the (Roskam et al. 2017), that it concerns both mothers and extra-care, attention and patience they require; Blanchard fathers (Lindstrom et al. 201 1; Roskam et al. 2017) and that et al. 2006), having a child with a disability or chronic its prevalence (between 8 and 36% depending on the types illness (for the same reason and also because treatments are of parents studied; Lindstrom et al. 2011; Roskam et al. time consuming and expensive; Lindahl Norberg et al. 2017) warrants further investigation. Many questions need 2014; Lindstrom et al. 201 1; Lindahl Norberg 2007, 2010) to be addressed but one of the most pressing is certainly and having an adopted child (because of the stigma of identifying burnout antecedents/risk factors, for this is a pre- adoption and of being adoptive parents; Miall 1987; Wegar requisite to developing suitable action in terms of both 2000) or a foster child (because the child is at higher risk of prevention and intervention. Because burnout arises from a exhibiting violent and sexually precocious behavior, and lasting and significant imbalance of demands over resources because of the potentially stressful, ambiguous and con- (Maslach et al. 2001; Schaufeli et al. 2009), theoretically flictual relationship with social workers and biological relevant risk factors for burnout involves factors (in the parents; Denby et al. 1999). microsystem, mesosystem and macrosystem) that could As suggested by Lindstrom et al. 201 1, stable traits of either increase parental demands or diminish parental the parent is expected to influence the vulnerability to resources, or both. A close analysis of the available litera- parental burnout. Particular attention should be paid to ture on parenting stress or burnout (when available) or neuroticism which has been found to be a major predictor of commonsense suggests that factors that could increase parenting stress (Vermaes et al. 2008) and to predict less parental demands or diminish parental resources (or both) efficient parental practices (see Prinzie et al. 2009 for a can be categorized into five different categories of factors: meta-analysis). Research on job burnout has also shown that socio-demographics, particularities of the child, stable traits personality traits related to affect and stress management of the parent, parenting cognitions and behaviors, and (trait affectivity; emotional stabilityeuroticism; emotional family functioning. intelligence) were the most reliable and powerful trait 2 Springer604 J Child Fam Stud (2018) 27:602-614 predictors of burnout (Alarcon et al. 2009; Mikolajczak Second, including all predictors in a single analysis and et al. 2007). Beyond personality, anxious and avoidant examining their relative weight in predicting burnout and attachment may increase vulnerability to parental burnout, the amount of total explained variance. This will rule out a not only because they both increase stress responses number of predictors, retaining only the significant ones to (Armour et al. 201 1; Smyth et al. 2015) but also because create a preliminary model of burnout risk factors. The third they are associated to less efficient parenting styles (e.g., step consists of testing this model on another sample. The Adam et al. 2004; Pearson et al. 1994) and greater risk of fourth and final step consists of validating the model in a internalized and externalized problems in the respective longitudinal design that allows to disantangle causes from children (Cowan et al. 1996). consequences and identify circularities. The study reported Because parenting factors role restriction (i.e., the per- here focused on the first three steps and aims to provide the ceived loss of freedom associated with one's parental role) knowledge base on which the fourth step can be built. It is is considered as being an important parental stressor (Abi- noteworthy that the current study and the resulting model din and Abidin 1990) and because it has already been focus on risk factors at the micro- and meso-system levels; shown that lower leisure time for oneself or as a couple investigating risk factors at the macrosystem level is of could be a risk factor for burnout (Lindstrom et al. 2011), utmost importance too, but it requires a large multi-cultural higher perceived role restriction should increase the risk of study, that takes time to set up. burnout. Parenting practices and self-efficacy must play a role too, as they influence how the child behaves and obeys (Aunola and Nurmi 2005; Boeldt et al. 2012; Mouton and Roskam 2015; Snyder et al. 2005; Wiggins et al. 2015). Method Higher parenting self-efficacy, positive parenting, auton- omy demands and discipline should be associated with less Participants burnout, while inconsistent discipline should be associated with more burnout. Data were collected from a sample of 1723 french-speaking The family is where parenting takes place, and three parents who had at least one child living at home. The family functioning factors could play a role in burnout by sample comprised a majority of women (87%). Participants increasing/decreasing demands on parents or resources to were aged 22 to 75 (mean age = 39.50; SD = 8.26). 15% of do their parental job: marital satisfaction, co-parenting and children were aged between 0 and 2; 22% were aged disorganization in the family. As already suggested by between 2 and 5; 27% between 6 and 11, 12% between 12 Lindstrom et al. (2011), a nurturing relationship, commu- and 15, 8% between 16 and 18; 6% between 18 and 20 and nication and happiness with one's partner (i.e., greater 10% were above 20 years old. 1261 parents (73.2%) came marital satisfaction) is related with less parental burnout. from Belgium, 422 (24.5%) from other French-speaking Having a co-parent (the co-parent of the child is often the European countries and 40 (2.3%) from outside Europe. spouse, but not always in case of divorce) who agrees with The mean number of siblings was 2.30 (SD = 1.08), ran- one's educational goals and practices, who cooperates in ging from 1 to 7. Of the children, 194 (11.3%) had suffered parenting decisions and who values one as a parent (i.e., or were suffering from chronic or severe illness or a dis- good co-parenting) should also be related to less burnout, ability. Of the parents, 1453 (84.3%) lived with a partner, especially as it has recently been shown to be related to i.e., 972 were married and 481 legal cohabitants; 270 lower parenting stress (Durtschi et al. 2017). By contrast, (15.7%) were single parents. Also, 165 (9.5%) of the par- disorganization in the family (i.e., chaotic home life: ents were living in a step family. The educational level of absence of routines, mess, agitation, noise etc.; Dumas et al. the parents was calculated as the number of years of edu- 2005) should be related to more burnout. cation they had completed from first grade onward. Of the The aim of this research was to examine the relative participants, 262 had completed 12 years, corresponding to weight of these five categories of theoretically relevant risk the end of secondary school i.e., the end of compulsory factors for parental burnout (sociodemographic factors, education in Belgium (15.2%); 606 had completed 3 particularities of the child, stable traits of the parent, par- further years (corresponding to undergraduate studies) enting and family functioning)-and of each factor within (35.2%); 855 had a degree of 4-years or more (49.6%). Net these five categories-in predicting parental burnout in monthly household income was less than E2500 for 388 order to derive a parsimonious model of putative ante- participants (22.4%), between 62500 and E4000 for 735 cedents of bumout in a general, non-specific, sample of participants (42.7%), between (4000 and E5500 for 421 parents. Modelling the risk factors of burnout involves four participants (24.4%) and higher than E5500 for 179 of them steps: First, examining the extent to which a number of (10.5%). theoretically relevant risk factors correlate with burnout. SpringerJ Child Fam Stud (2018) 27:602-614 605 Procedure or less (2), a few times a month (3), once a week (4), a few times a week (5), every day (6). A global score was Preliminary results of a pilot study conducted in another obtained by summing the appropriate item scores, with sample of 379 parents suggested that sociodemographic higher scores indicating greater burnout; the items of the factors, i.e., age, gender, marital status, educational level, personal accomplishment factor were therefore reverse- income, number of children and their age range, accounted scored. The PBI shows good psychometric properties for a very limited part of the variance in parental burnout. It (Roskam et al. 2017). Cronbach's alphas in the current was therefore concluded that the association between par- sample were .93 for Emotional Exhaustion, .83 for Emo- ental burnout and other sets of risk factors should be studied tional Distancing and .79 for Personal Accomplishment. in subsequent research. In the current study, participants completed a survey focusing on five categories of factors: Socio-demographic factors sociodemographics, particularities of the child, stable traits of the parent, parenting and family functioning factors. Participants were asked about their age, gender, number of Participants were informed about the survey through social children, gender and age of each child (age was asked under networks, websites, schools, pediatricians or word of the form of 7 categories for each child: 0-2, 2-5, 6-11, mouth. In order to avoid (self-)selection bias, participants 12-15, 15-18, 18-20, age marital status, type of family were not informed that the study was about parental bum- (single parent, living with the children's father/mother, out. The study was presented as a study about "being a blended family), surface area of housing, level of education, parent in the 21st century". Parents were eligible to parti- net monthly household income, working time (being cipate in the studies only if they had (at least) one child still unemployed, part-time, full-time), work hours per day. living at home. Participants were invited to complete an online questionnaire after giving informed consent. The informed consent they signed allowed participants to Particularities of the child withdraw at any stage without having to justify their with- drawal. They were also assured that data would remain Participants were asked about each of their children whether anonymous. Participants who completed the questionnaire the child displays behavioral problems, has a disability or had the opportunity to enter a lottery with a 1/1000 chance chronic illness, or if she was an adopted or foster child. of winning E200. Participants who wished to participate in the lottery had to provide their email address, but the latter Stable traits of the parent was disconnected from their questionnaire. The ques- tionnaire was completed online with the forced choice These were: attachment, trait emotional intelligence and the option, ensuring a dataset with no missing data. big five personality traits. Attachment was assessed by means of the widely used Measures "Experiences in Close Relationships Questionnaire- Revised" (ECR-R) (Brennan et al. 1998; Fraley et al. 2000). Parental burnout was assessed with the Parental Burnout The ECR-R consists of two subscales (18 items each): Inventory (PBI) (Roskam et al. 2017), a 22-item self-report Anxiety (e.g., I worry about being abandoned) and questionnaire consisting of three subscales: Emotional Avoidance (e.g., I prefer not to show a partner how I feel Exhaustion (8 items) (e.g., I feel tired when I get up in the deep down). In order to limit the total number of items in morning and have to face another day with my children; the survey, the five most representative items were selected When I think about my parental role, I feel like I'm at the in each of the two subscales based on factor loadings found end of my rope), Emotional Distancing (8 items) (e.g., I in validation studies (Brennan et al. 1998; Fraley et al. sometimes feel as though I am taking care of my children on 2000; Sibley and Liu 2004). A five-point Likert-type scale autopilot; I can no longer show my children how much I was provided for each item ranging from "Strongly dis- love them), and Loss of Personal Accomplishment (6 items) agree" to "Strongly disagree". The ECR-R has high con- (e.g., I accomplish many worthwhile things as a parent struct and predictive validity (Sibley et al. 2005; Sibley and (reversed); As a parent, I handle emotional problems very Liu 2004). Both the anxiety and avoidance subscales were calmly (reversed). As the development of the Parental remarkably stable over a 6-week assessment period (86% Burnout Inventory (PBI) was partly inspired by the Maslach shared variance over time), which suggests that the ECR-R Burnout Inventory (MBI) (see Roskam et al. 2017 for fur- provides stability estimates of trait attachment that are lar- ther details concerning the development of the PBI), items gely free from measurement error over short periods of time are rated on the same 7-point Likert scale as in the original (Sibley and Liu 2004). Cronbach's alphas were of .94 for MBI: never (0), a few times a year or less (1), once a month Anxiety and .86 for Avoidance in the current study. 2 Springer606 J Child Fam Stud (2018) 27:602-614 Trait emotional intelligence was assessed using the Trait (Meunier and Roskam 2007) which is a 35-item instrument Emotional Intelligence Questionnaire-Short Form (TEI- yielding nine factors: positive parenting (8 items; e.g., I Que-SF; Cooper and Petrides 2010; French adaptation by make time to listen to my child when he/she wants to tell me Mikolajczak et al. 2007). This questionnaire consists of 30 something), monitoring (4 items; e.g., I keep track of the items rated on a seven-point items (from strongly agree to friends my child is seeing), rules (6 items; e.g., I teach my strongly disagree). Examples of items are "I'm usually able child to obey rules), discipline (4 items; e.g., When my to find ways to control my emotions when I want to" and child does something that I don't want him/her to do, I "Generally, I find it difficult to know exactly what emotion punish him/her), inconsistent discipline (2 items; e.g., When I'm feeling (Reversed)" The internal and predictive psy- my child doesn't obey a rule, it happens that I threaten him/ chometrics of the TEIQue-SF are excellent (Cooper and her with a punishment, but that in the end I don't carry it Petrides 2010). In this study, the internal consistency out), harsh punishment (3 items; e.g., I slap my child when (alpha) of the scale was .90. he/she has done something wrong), ignoring (3 items; e.g., The Big Five personality traits were appraised by the Ten When my child does something that is not allowed, I give Item Personality (TIPI) measure (Gosling et al. 2003). The him/her an angry look and pretend he/she is not there), TIPI is a 10-item instrument based on the Big Five model. material rewarding (3 items; e.g., I give my child money or Items are presented in the form of "I see myself as" with a 7- a small present when he/she has done something that I am point Likert-type scale ranging from "disagree strongly" to 7 happy about), and autonomy demands (2 items; e.g., I teach "agree strongly". The two-item per factor format results in my child to solve his/her own problems). A five-point low Cronbach alphas which were .68, .40, .50, .73, and .45 Likert-type scale is provided for each item ranging from for the Extraversion, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, 'never" to "always." The EPEP scale has good psychometric Emotional Stability, and Openness to Experience scales in properties (Meunier and Roskam 2007). In order to limit the he initial study (Gosling et al. 2003). They were .66, .37, total number of items in the current survey, the "material 45, .60 and .47 in the current study. Despite its brevity and rewarding" and "monitoring" scales were dropped because low alphas, this questionnaire shows good convergent and they were for the most part unsuitable for infants. Therefore, predictive validity (Gosling et al. 2003; Ehrhart et al. 2009). 28 items out of 35 were considered in the survey. Alphas ranged from .66 to .88. Parental factors Family functioning factors They consisted of both parental cognitions (i.e., how parents think about themselves as a parent, in particular their self- They consisted of marital satisfaction, coparenting and efficacy beliefs and perceived role restriction) and parental family disorganization. behaviors (i.e., childrearing practices). Marital satisfaction was assessed with the ENRICH Self-efficacy beliefs were evaluated with the parenting (Evaluation and Nurturing Relationship Issues, Commu- problems subscale of the Parental Stress Questionnaire nication and Happiness) scale consisting of 15 items (e.g., (PSQ) (Vermulst et al. 201 1) consisting of 6 items (e.g., I My partner and I understand each other perfectly) rated on a can calm my child down when he/she gets angry, I am good five-point scale from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly at correcting my children when necessary) rated on a four- agree) (Fowers and Olson 1993). In the current study, 9 point Likert-type scale from "not true" to "very true". items out of 15 were used to limit the total number of items Reliability reported for the parenting problem scale of the in the survey. In particular, items focusing on satisfaction PSQ scales ranged from .82 and .84 according to the child with regard to religious beliefs, relations with parents in- age group under consideration (Vermulst et al. 2011). The law, leisure time and financial position, were deleted. In the Cronbach alpha in the current sample was .72. initial validation study (Fowers and Olson 1993), the Perceived role restriction was measured with the role Cronbach's alpha was .86. It was .88 in the current sample. restriction scale of the Parental Stress Questionnaire (PSQ) Coparenting perceptions were assessed by means of the (Vermulst et al. 201 1) consisting of 5 items (e.g., I have less revised Co-Parenting Scale (CPS) (Feinberg et al. 2012), contact with friends that I used because of my child) rated which consists of six subscales: Agreement (4 items; e.g., on a four-point Likert-type scale from "not true" to "very My partner and I have the same goals for our child(ren)), true". Reliability reported for the parenting problem scale of Increased Closeness (5 items; e.g., I feel close to my partner the PSQ scales ranged from .74 and .79 according to the when I see him (her) play with our child(ren)), Exposure to child age group under consideration (Vermulst et al. 2011). Conflict (5 items; e.g., How many times a week do you The Cronbach alpha found in the current sample was .86. argue with your partner in front of your child(ren)?); Active Childrearing practices were assessed with the Evalua Support/Cooperation (6 items; e.g., My partner supports my tion des Pratiques Educatives Parentales (EPEP) scale parenting decisions); Competition/Undermining (6 items; SpringerJ Child Fam Stud (2018) 27:602-614 607 e.g., My partner sometimes makes jokes or sarcastic com- step consisted of including all predictors from each set of ments about the way I am as a parent;); and Endorsement of risk factors and examining their relative weight in predict- Partner's Parenting (e.g., I think that my partner is a good ing burnout and the amount of explained variance for each parent; seven items). Items are rated on a seven-point set. This was achieved through linear regressions. Thanks to Likert-scale from 1 (not at all true for us) to 7 (absolutely these initial two steps, we drew up a preliminary model of true for us). Cronbach's alphas ranged from .69 to .85 in the the risk factors for parental burnout. The model included current sample. only the risk factors which had been found to be sig- Family disorganization was assessed with the CHAOS nificantly related to parental burnout at a minimum r = .20 (Confusion Hubbub And Order Scale), a 15-item measure in the first step and which remained significant predictors in of "environmental confusion and disorganization in the linear regression models in the second step. Also, only the family", i.e., high levels of noise, crowding, and home sets of factors explaining a significant part of the variance in traffic, in children's development (Matheny et al. 1995). parental burnout in the second step were retained. The risk Example of items are: "We can usually find things when we factors for the parental burnout model was tested in the third need them" or "The atmosphere in our home is calm". Based step in an independent sample, i.e., the second subsample of on current usage, a single score was derived from the 861 participants. The statistical analyses were carried out CHAOS questionnaire to represent the parent's report of using SEM software AMOS 18.0 (Arbuckle 1995, 2007). home characteristics, corresponding to the simple sum of Again, the data were checked for normality. Skewness, 1.03 responses for the 15 items. The true or false responses were (.08), and kurtosis, 1.16 (.16), indicated that the PBI total scored so that a higher score represented more chaotic, score did not display strong deviation from normality in this disorganized, and time-pressured homes. In the initial second sample either. Structural equation modeling ana- validation study, the Cronbach's alpha for the 15 CHAOS lyses using Maximum Likelihood estimation were com- items was .79 and test-retest stability correlation was .74 pleted in two phases: a measurement phase and a structural (Matheny et al. 1995). In the current study, reliability phase. The measurement phase examines the relationship was .79. between the latent variables and their measures (i.e., do the measures correctly represent the expected latent construct? Data Analyses For instance, do neuroticism, emotional intelligence and attachment form a coherent latent construct?). As stated, the Modelling the risk factors of burnout involved three steps: indicators for the latent variables were chosen on the basis First, examining the extent to which a number of theoreti- of the two preliminary steps of data analyses. The structural cally relevant risk factors correlated with burnout. Second, phase examines the relationship between the latent variables including all predictors in a single analysis and examining (i.e., what are the relationships between the latent risk their relative weight in predicting burnout and the amount factors and parental burnout? For instance, do neuroticism, of total explained variance. This ruled out a number of emotional intelligence and attachment form a coherent predictors, and only the significant ones were retained to latent construct?). Evaluation of the fit of the model was create a preliminary model of burnout risk factors. The third carried out on the basis of inferential goodness-of-fit sta- step consists of testing this model on another sample. This tistics (y ) and y'/df, the comparative fit index (CFI) (Marsh procedure thus involves an exploratory part (Steps 1 and 2) and Hau 2007) and the root mean square error of approx- and a confirmarory part (Step 3). Because these two parts imation (RMSEA) (Cole and Maxwell 2003). The chi- must be conducted in separate samples to be valid, our square compares the observed variance-covariance matrix sample of 1723 subjects was randomly split into two sub- with the predicted variance-covariance matrix. It theoreti- samples of 862 and 861 participants respectively. The cally ranges from 0 (perfect fit) to a (poor fit). It is con- comparability of the two subsamples was checked and they sidered satisfactory when it is non-significant (p > .05) were found to be strictly similar with regard to socio- (Byme 2001). Note that for models with a maximum of 200 demographic characteristics. The first and second steps were cases, the chi square test is considered as a good measure of conducted with the subsample of 862 participants. The first fit. However, for models with more than 400 cases (which is step consisted of examining which risk factors correlate the case here), the chi square is almost always statistically with parental burnout in order to establish how far each significant (Byme 2001; Hu and Bentler 1999). In the factor of each set (sociodemographics, particularities of the current study, chi square is given for information purposes child, stable traits of the parent, parenting and family and the Hoelter index is given-this states the sample size functioning factors) was associated with parental burnout. at which chi square would not be significant (alpha = .05). This was done using parametric (Pearson) correlations since Values close to or greater than .90 are desirable on the CFI, skewness, .80 (.08) and kurtosis, .28 (.16) of the PBI total while the RMSEA should preferably be less than or equal to score did not display deviation from normality. The second Springer608 J Child Fam Stud (2018) 27:602-614 06 with a confidence interval with a lower bound near zero Table 1 Bivariate correlations between parental bumout and and the higher bound less than .08 (Hu and Bentler 1999). sociodemographic, particularities of the child, stable traits of the parent, parenting and family functioning factors Factors Results Sociodemographics Gender (men = 1, Women = 2) 06 Step 1 Age -.04 Number of children .04 Bivariate correlations between parental burnout and socio- Having young children (i.e., .05, x/df =4.76, Hoelter = Childrearing practices: rules 277, CFI =.96, RMSEA =.06 [.05-.07]. Standardized Childrearing practices: ignoring 03 regression weights of the indicators on the latent EB vari- Childrearing practices: inconsistent discipline .02 ables ranged from .38 to .72 for stable traits of the parent, 45% from .44 to .72 for parenting factors, and from .55 to .88 for Family functioning family functioning factors. All paths were significant at p Marital satisfaction -.16**# <.001. correlations within the three sets of factors were .89 coparenting: agreement between parents stable traits and parenting .66 increased closeness .02 family functioning .73 exposure to conflict functioning. structural active support .04 model with significant paths is presented in fig. this competition provided a good fit data: y p> .05, x /df =4.11, Hoelter = 306, CFI= .97, RMSEA =.06 [.04-.07]. Thus, results found in an independent 2Springer610 J Child Fam Stud (2018) 27:602-614 Emotional intelligence -.79 Stable traits of Neuroticism .53 the parent Attachment .42 60 avoidance 50 Positive parenting -.62 .73 Parental Self-efficacy .82 Parenting burnout beliefs .54 Role restriction 27 Exposure to conflict 56 Coparental ..59 Family Agreement (dys)functioning -.73 Marital satisfaction Family dys- organization Fig. 1 Risk factor model for parental burnout. The standardized paths are shown, meaning for example that when family dysfunctioning goes up by 1 standard deviation, parental bumout goes up by .56 standard deviations. All paths are significant at p <.001 sample strongly supported a risk model where parental role do as shown by lindahl norberg and colla- burnout arises mainly from three sources i.e. parents borators or that they cannot act amplifiers of other stable traits parenting family functioning. factors. it rather means simply weigh less than the categories factors: characteristics factors in way discussion this can be considered good news: if was caused socio-demographic par- study examined correlates ticularities child two types all relative weight five changed our room for maneuver psychologists would particularities limited. however not necessarily null family- research domains has listening to functioning predicting burnout. so doing patients difficulties is therapeutic even nothing adds both literature on done change these et al. stress because best knowledge such independent longitudinal confirms yet been undertaken regarding latter. find- general char- ings show particu- acteristics inter- larities explain much variance vention studies should examine extent which expected. does mean play improving emotional competencies adult>