Can parents burn out? The aim of this research was to examine the construct validity of the concept of parental burnout and to provide researchers which an instrument to measure it. We conducted two successive questionnaire-based online studies, the first with a community-sample of 379 parents using principal component analyses and the second with a community- sample of 1,723 parents using both principal component analyses and confirmatory factor analyses. We investigated whether the tridimensional structure of the burnout syndrome (i.e., exhaustion, inefficacy, and depersonalization) held in the parental context. We then examined the specificity of parental burnout vis-à-vis professional burnout assessed with the Maslach Burnout Inventory, parental stress assessed with the Parental Stress Questionnaire and depression assessed with the Beck Depression Inventory. The results support the validity of a tri-dimensional burnout syndrome including exhaustion, inefficacy and emotional distancing with, respectively, 53.96 and 55.76% variance explained in study 1 and study 2, and reliability ranging from 0.89 to 0.94. The final version of the Parental Burnout Inventory (PBI) consists of 22 items and displays strong psychometric properties (CFI = 0.95, RMSEA = 0.06). Low to moderate correlations between parental burnout and professional burnout, parental stress and depression suggests that parental burnout is not just burnout, stress or depression. The prevalence of parental burnout confirms that some parents are so exhausted that the term “burnout” is appropriate. The proportion of burnout parents lies somewhere between 2 and 12%. The results are discussed in light of their implications at the micro-, meso- and macro-levels.

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Parental burnout is an emotional disorder related to the context of parenthood (Roskam, Raes, & Mikolajczak, 2017). Personality differences in parental burnout were explored. One thousand seven hundred twenty-three parents, age 20 to 75 years, responded to a questionnaire. Results indicated that three personality traits are linked to this syndrome. A high level of neuroticism, a low level of conscientiousness, and a low level of agreeableness were all found to be risk factors for parental burnout. Parents who have difficulty initiating and maintaining positive affective relations with their child(ren) (high neuroticism), identifying and responding to their child(ren)'s needs (low agreeableness), or providing their child(ren) with a structured and coherent environment (low conscientiousness) are more likely to experience parental burnout syndrome.

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