Factors Influencing Unmarried Mothers' Parenting Stress: Based on Depression, Social Support, and Health Perception

Eun Jeong Oh; Hye Young Kim

doi:10.4069/kjwhn.2018.24.2.116

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Oh and Kim: Factors Influencing Unmarried Mothers' Parenting Stress: Based on Depression, Social Support, and Health Perception

Orginal Article

Korean J Women Health Nurs 2018;24(2):116-125.

Published online: 20 June 2018

DOI: https://doi.org/10.4069/kjwhn.2018.24.2.116

Factors Influencing Unmarried Mothers' Parenting Stress: Based on Depression, Social Support, and Health Perception

Eun Jeong Oh¹, Hye Young Kim^2,

¹Research Institute of Nursing Science, Keimyung University, Daegu, Korea

²College of Nursing, Keimyung University, Daegu, Korea

Corresponding author: Kim, Hye Young College of Nursing, Keimyung University, 1095 Dalgubeol-daero, Daegu 42601, Korea. Tel: +82-53-580-3934, Fax: +82-53-580-3916, E-mail: hye11533@kmu.ac.kr

Received 21 February 20188 May 2018 Accepted 26 May 2018

This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Abstract

Purpose

To identify factors affecting parenting stress of unmarried mothers.

Methods

The subjects were 108 unmarried women who were parenting their children under the age of six. The data was collected from December 15, 2016 to March 5, 2017. The instruments consisted of self-reported questionnaires that included93 items: 21 on depression, 16 on social support, 20 on health perception, and 36 on parenting stress. The collected data were analyzed by t-test, ANOVA, Pearson correlations, and hierarchical multiple regression.

Results

The factors influencing parenting stress were health perception (β=-.55, p<.001), evaluative support (β=-.42, p=.005), informative support (β=-.35, p=.040), emotional support (β=-.24, p=.045), partner support (β=-.20, p=.048), and depression (β=.14, p=.033), and the explanatory power was 57%.

Conclusion

In order to alleviate the parenting stress of unmarried mothers, it is necessary to develop programs considering the physical, psychological, and social factors of unmarried mothers. Their subjective assessment of their health can increase or decrease their parenting stress, so it is necessary to develop parenting-stress intervention focusing on health perception.

Keywords: Single parent, Parenting, Psychological stress

References

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Table 1.

General Characteristics of the Subjects (N=108)

Characteristics	Categories	n (%) or M±SD
Age (year)	＜20	6 (5.5)
	20∼29	96 (89.0)
	≥30	6 (5.5)
		24.4±3.20
Level of education	High school	20 (18.5)
	College	69 (63.9)
	≥University	19 (17.6)
Religion	Christianity	22 (20.4)
	Catholicism	8 (7.4)
	Buddhism	4 (3.7)
	No	74 (68.5)
Job	Yes	26 (24.1)
	No	82 (75.9)
Monthly income	＜100	85 (78.7)
(10,000 won)	≥100	23 (21.3)
		82.4±23.91
Depression level	Normal	60 (55.6)
	Mild	30 (27.8)
	Moderate	17 (15.7)
	Severe	1 (0.9)
Number of child	1	108 (100.0)
Age of child (year)	0∼1	37 (34.3)
	2∼3	62 (57.4)
	4∼6	9 (8.3)
		2.1±1.11
Health problem of	Yes	34 (31.5)
child	No	74 (68.5)

Table 2.

Depression, Social Support, Health Perception, and Parenting Stress (N=108)

Variables	M±SD	Min	Max	Range
Depression	13.95±6.08	0	29	0∼63
Social support	2.63±0.26	1.98	3.45	1∼5
Emotional support	2.62±0.26	1.89	3.32	1∼5
Informational support	2.65±0.27	1.96	3.64	1∼5
Material support	2.73±0.29	2.00	3.46	1∼5
Evaluative support	2.50±0.30	1.79	3.54	1∼5
Health perception	2.36±0.25	1.65	3.15	1∼4
Parenting stress	2.69±0.26	1.67	3.25	1∼5
Parental distress	3.83±0.48	2.58	5.00	1∼5
Parent-child dysfunctional interaction	1.93±0.34	1.00	2.58	1∼5
Difficult child	2.32±0.22	1.25	2.92	1∼5

Table 3.

Depression, Social Support, Health Perception, Parenting Stress by General Characteristics (N=108)

Characteristics	Categories	Depression		Social support		Health perception		Parenting Stress
Characteristics	Categories	M±SD	t or F (p) Scheffé	M±SD	t or F (p) Scheffé	M±SD t	t or F (p) Scheffé	M±SD	t or F (p) Scheffé
Age (year)	＜20	15.33±5.79	0.22	2.78±0.25	1.43	2.33±0.23	0.36	2.49±0.26	2.20
	20∼29	13.82±6.11	(.807)	2.62±0.27	(.243)	2.37±0.25	(.697)	2.71±0.26	(.115)
	≥30	14.67±6.68		2.54±0.13		2.29±0.20		2.63±0.23
Level of	High school^a	14.20±6.53	0.09	2.75±0.24	3.21	2.30±0.26	1.41	2.60±0.27	1.50
education	College^b	13.77±6.43	(.913)	2.59±0.27	(.045)	2.37±0.25	(.249)	2.72±0.27	(.228)
	≥University^c	14.37±4.28		2.63±0.23	b＜a	2.43±0.21		2.69±0.21
Religion	Christianity	13.09±5.55	0.26	2.69±0.27	0.78	2.36±0.27	0.36	2.66±0.30	0.90
	Catholicism	13.63±6.80	(.853)	2.69±0.24	(.508)	2.31±0.25	(.780)	2.81±0.22	(.446)
	Buddhism	13.00±3.37		2.56±0.16		2.46±0.11		2.58±0.14
	No	14.30±6.33		2.60±0.26		2.37±0.25		2.70±0.26
Job	Yes	14.77±6.42	0.78	2.61±0.27	0.35	2.41±0.30	1.19	2.65±0.31	–3.15
	No	13.70±5.99	(.435)	2.63±0.26	(.786)	2.35±0.23	(.235)	2.81±0.25	(.003)
Monthly income	＜100	13.54±5.43	–1.09	2.63±0.26	0.75	2.37±0.23	0.49	2.69±0.23	–0.34
(10,000 won)	≥100	15.48±8.04	(.285)	2.59±0.28	(.453)	2.34±0.31	(.629)	2.71±0.37	(.731)
Age of child (year)	0∼1^a	16.30±5.37	3.69	2.61±0.29	0.17	2.37±0.24	0.76	2.66±0.26	0.35
	2∼3^b	12.26±5.46	(.014)	2.62±0.24	(.842)	2.37±0.21	(.469)	2.71±0.23	(.706)
	4∼6^c	16.00±9.21	b＜a	2.67±0.31		2.27±0.42		2.72±0.46
Health problem	Yes	16.65±5.12	3.26	2.63±0.24	0.06	2.39±0.20	0.63	2.70±0.25	0.19
of child	No	12.72±6.12	(.002)	2.62±0.27	(.950)	2.35±0.27	(.533)	2.69±0.27	(.848)

Table 4.

Correlations among Depression, Social Support, Health Perception, Parenting Stress (N=108)

Variables	Depression	Social support				Health perception
	Depression	Emotional support	Informational support	Material support	Evaluative support	Health perception
	r (p)	r (p)	r (p)	r (p)	r (p)	r (p)
Social support
Emotional support	–.24 (.012)	1
Informational support	–.31 (.001)	.87 (＜.001)	1
Material support	–.29 (.002)	.82 (＜.001)	.84 (＜.001)	1
Evaluative support	–.32 (.001)	.80 (＜.001)	.84 (＜.001)	.88 (＜.001)	1
Health perception	–.25 (.002)	.31 (.001)	.40 (＜.001)	.37 (＜.001)	.36 (＜.001)	1
Parenting stress	.31 (.001)	–.47 (＜.001)	–.53 (＜.001)	–.50 (＜.001)	–.52 (＜.001)	–.68 (＜.001)

Table 5.

Factors Influencing Unmarried Mother's Parenting Stress (N=108)

Variables	Model I			Model II
Variables	_β		t (p)	_β		t (p)
Job (yes=1)	–.10		–1.02 (.310)	–.05		–1.79 (.433)
Depression				.14		2.16 (.033)
Social support
Emotional support				–.24		–1.65 (.045)
Informational support				–.35		–1.87 (.040)
Material support				–.20		–1.24 (.048)
Evaluative support				–.42		–3.01 (.005)
Health perception				–.55		–7.54 (＜.001)
R²		.01			.59
Adjusted R²		.01			.57
F (p)		1.04 (.310)			45.09 (＜.001)

Note. Dummy variable: Employed (Yes=1, No=0).

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