Title: Parenting Stress Among New Parents Before And During The Covid-19 Pandemic In Ghana.
Stressful situations are caused by challenges new parents experience. The emergence of the covid-19 pandemic has caused threatening challenges to most parents that may have negatively influenced the infants. The study aims to examine how the pandemic influences parenting, determine the differences in parenting stress between mothers and fathers, the contribution of study variables of new parents’ parenting stress, and the association between gender, meaning in life, marital satisfaction, and parenting stress.
The outbreak of COVID-19 has a lot of challenges on families from the closure up of schools to increased parental pressure and erosions. According to the US army research, there is a lot of emotional sadness and loneness affecting the development of children (Gedermann, et al., 2021).
Different factors contribute to parental stress that affects a child’s quality of life. Being a parent means being ready to face challenges characterized by frustrations and fear (Namaguchi, k, & Milkie, 2017). Parenting of stress is a paradox with benefits but also with costs and challenges. The study will be focused on aspect feeling demands of being a parent related to exercising duties. The parental demand referred to as parental stress is influenced by gender factors. Various studies indicate that fathers are less stressed about their roles than mothers (Narravett, F, & Naravette, 2021). Mothers take the primary role of taking care of children (Ruppanner, Parales, & Boxter, 2019).
Another factor that influences parental stress is home tasks and related work. Failure to carry out the parental roles due to pressure experienced from work. Work demands hinder childcare and family well-being. Failure of child care has resulted from the failure of parental cooperation (kulik, L., & Libbermann, 2015).
Relatives and parents have a primary role in the rearing of children hence they fundamentally influence parenting of stress (Deater-Deckard, 2008). The child’s physical, cognitive and social development is influenced by the people and environment that a child interacts with (Brown, 2020). Some of the factors that influence parenting are disabilities like mental disorders, child illness, or lack of social support. Hence, parenting stress is influenced by daily activities (Russell., Hutchison.M., Tambling.R., J., & L., 2020).
Poor lifestyle, less educated parents, and cultures among parents had lower inspiration for their kids (Putnam., 2016). The economic and financial bias in schools and colleges affected students from poor backgrounds (Theule, 2011). High costs in school without support with scholarship influence the academic performance of kids hence resulting in parental stressing (Theule, 2011). The parenting and management of stress have been adversely affected by the emergence of COVID-19. There is a lot of psychological torture and instability among families hence consequently influencing the growth and development of infants due to risks such as stress that arise from the management of COVID-19 (Orit, Ofir., & Chasson, 2021). The study has been conducted in Israel and it is replicated in Ghana. However, the study may not be applicable in Ghana because the emergence of covid 19 has made Ghana struggle in fighting against the spread the disease hence the country has been depending on western countries for covid 19 vaccine (ministry of environmental science, 2021). The Israel government has managed to vaccinate all of its population compared in Ghana where the government is facing criticism from advocates, Civil society groups, on vaccinating her citizens (Pepetsi, 2021). The cultural influence in Ghana whereby it is a parental role specifically demanding fathers to provide economic resoures that cover the needs of their families. Hence, adding parental pressure to parents, especially fathers. (Narravett, F, & Naravette, 2021). The parental pressures affect families in Ghana since they experience health and social challenges such as fewer social and financial resources, poor network and technology, high population, and poor education system that result in torture and violence. Hence, making it hard to carry out the research
Being a parent is considered as a role that every society plays in child development involving health care of infants and handling the emotional well-being of infants (Namaguchi, k, & Milkie, 2017). The need of being a parent requires a psychological reaction to the demands of the infants. Failure to handle psychological order may result in poor child-parent relationships, physical and mental torture, and may generally influence the behavior of the infants (Berryhill, et al., 2016). Parenting of stress depends on the child-parent relationship. The parental experience of new parents is influenced by the emergence of covid 19. Increased levels of stress, emotional distress, harshness, and failure to meet the needs of the kids were experienced during and after the pandemic with mothers experiencing higher levels of parental stress and anxiety compared to their male counterparts (Orit, Ofir., & Chasson, 2021)
The outbreak of covid 19 led to parents developing different perspectives on parenting stress. Lockdowns and curfews imposed led to fear, life uncertainties, and closure of schools that increased the levels of stress among parents (Wang, et al., 2020). The pandemic was a threat to economies that lead to stress in handling family issues (Wang, et al., 2020).
Resources
Resources play a vital role in the handling of stress. Handling of stress needs parents to develop strategies. For example, good communication and problem-solving in marital satisfaction (Prime, Wade, & Browne, 2020).
Factors such as lack of social support, child mental illness, and mental disorder contribute to parenting stress. Child mental illness causes depression and trauma to mothers (Chen, et al., 2017). The above are some of the background variables which will be under investigation
The study investigated the parenting stress of new parents before and after the outbreak of covid 19 about both mothers and fathers. It also investigated some of the factors that may result in parental stress and how the handling of resources helps in developing parental strategies.
Design
Participants will be parents with infants below the age of two years. Data will be collected through an online survey whereby a questionnaire will be administered to parents through a link. In the questionnaire, parents will be required to answer appropriately on variables that include; type of delivery, marital status, physical health, infant mass, economic status, social status, and risk of pregnancy. The parental stress model will be adjusted using the OLS (least squares) multiple linearity regression to prove the normality of errors, linearity, homoscedasticity, and outliers. The multiple linear regression model (MLR) that’s rubust model the will be used for factor variance since items will be considered as contious variables. From the model, we will obtain , p value , the root mean square of approximation (REMSA) that will determine the goodness of the fit, we will perform comparative fit index (CFI) ,we will perform collinearity analysis to test of tolerance and VIF of every coefficient to prove multicollinearity. The regression model, parental stress will be considered as independent variables , demographic factors such as parent children and number of children will be control varibles. Pychological factors such as social support, conlict in homes will be considered as predictor varibles. A statistical software R version 3.6 will be used.
Data will be collected from 500 participants. 250 male and 250 females. Data will be recruited in two phases. The first phase is before the onset of covid 19 and the second on the onset of covid 19. Parents’ contacts will be provided by all level 5 hospitals in Ghana. Parents with children under the age of 5 will be surveyed. Parents will be required to give feedback after filling out the questionnaire. To take part in the survey, a participant will answer a yes/ or no response on the link. A yes response will allow participants to take part in the survey. A no response will close the link and participants will not take part in the survey.
Parenting stress scale
A parenting stress scale is a Spanish adaptive scale abbreviated as (SPP Berry and Jones, 1995) will be used in measuring stress. The SPP has 36 items with 3 dimensions that describe parent-child relationship, the thoughts of parents on regard to their roles, and parental perception of their children. Responses will be recorded on a Likert scale with 5 strongly disagree, 4 disagree, 3 neither agree nor disagree, 2 agree, 1 strongly agree
Family history questionnaire.
A structured questionnaire scale will be used in identifying the background features of participants. For example age, education background measured in scale of (1=post graduate,2=high school,3=elementary), economic status(1=poor, 2=good, 3=better,4=best), physical health(1=good,2=poor), risk pregnancy(1=high risk, 2=low risk), marital status (1=married,2=separated, 3=single) and type of birth(c-section=1, 2=forceps, 3=virginal).
Procedure
From the study, we will learn the experience of participants. For example, most parents may be married. The level of education and income level may be distributed evenly. Firstly, we will prepare the questionnaire, then we obtain the parent’s phone details from all level 5 hospitals and share the link for data collection. We will then start collecting data for two weeks. After data collection, we will prepare the data in excel, do the cleaning, and then analyze the data. After analysis, we will make a summary, conclusion, and decision regarding our findings. We will require our participants to cooperate since the information will be confidential. For example, after filling out the consent form, the participants will be asked to give their thoughts on parenting stress
The research must uphold culture and respect to all participants. The students conducting research will get approval from the Division of psychology in Ghana. The students will ensure standards of professionalism such as honesty, accountability, confidentiality, and integrity that could help in handling ethical dilemmas such as taking credit on others’ work. focus on the objectives of the research while coding variables in an appropriate manner that is easy to understand. Researchers will be required to obtain information from participants only hence, participants will have a right to withdraw from participating anytime.
Variables will be coded since coding is the most appropriate way to measure qualitative variables. Coding of qualitative variables will help us to analyze, summarize and interpret the results (Team, 2017-2020). For example, coding marital status as 1=married, 2=separeted,3=single.
References
Berryhill, M., Soloski, K.L and Durtschi, J.A, & Adams. (2016). Family process: Ealy child emotionally, parenting stress, and couple relationship quality. personal relationships, 23-41. doi:https://doi.org/10.1111/pere.121o9
Brown, S. M.-P. (2020). Stress and parenting during the global COVID-19 pandemic. Child abuse & neglect, 110, 104699.
Chen et al (2017). Understanding the relationship between cesarian birth and stress disorder and depression, anxiety, and depression after birth: A nationwide cohort study. Birth, 369-376. doi:https://doi.org/10.1111/birt.12295
Deater-Deckard, K. (2008). Parenting stress. . n.c: Yale University Press.
Namaguchi, k, & Milkie. (2017). sociological perspectives on parenting stress: how social structure and culture shape parental strain and well-being of parents and children. Parental stress and early child development: Adaptive and maladptive outcomes, 47-73.
Orit, Ofir., & Chasson. (2021). Parenting stress among new parents before and during the covid 19 pandemic. child abuse and neglect, 105080. doi:https://doi.org/10.16/j.chiabu.2021.105080
Prime, Wade, & Browne. (2020). Risk and resilience in the family well-being during covid 19 pandemic. American psychologist, 631-643. doi:doi.org/10.1037/amp0000660
Putnam. (2016). Our kids: The American dream in crisis. Simon and Schuster.
Russell, Hutchison.M and Tambling.R.. (2020). Initial challenges of caregiving during COVID-19: Caregiver burden, mental health, and the parent-child relationship. Child Psychiatry & Human Development, 51(5), 671-682.
Steger, M. F. (2006). The meaning in life questionnaire: Assessing the presence of and search for meaning in life. . KalerJournal of Counseling Psychology, 51(1), 80-83. doi:https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-0167.53.1.80
The team, C. T. (2017-2020). CESSDA Data Management Expert. Data management, 1-50. Retrieved from https://www.cessda.eu/DMGuide
Theule, J. W. (2011). Predicting parenting stress in families of children with ADHD: Parent and contextual factors. . Journal of Child and Family Studies, 20(5), 640-647.
Wang et al . (2020). Immediate psychological responses and associated factors during initial stages of covid 19 epidemic among the general population in China. international journal of environmental research and public health, 5(1), 1729.
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