Parental burnout, depression and emotional development of the preschoolers

Abstract

IntroductionParental burnout is becoming more and more prevalent in the world, mainly incultures with high demands towards parents. Parental burnout is distinctive from depression and might have its unique influence on child development, which isunder current international research. This work contributes to the understanding of parental burnout, maternal depression and child emotional development(specifically emotion comprehension) interrelations. Additionally, we explored whether there are differences in the effects of parental burnout and depressionon boys and girls.MethodsTo analyse the emotional development of the preschoolers, the Russian version of the Test of Emotional Comprehension (TEC) was used. We used the Russian version of the Parental Burnout Inventory (PBI) to analyse the level of PB and the Russian version of Beck depression Inventory (BDI) to assess participants’ depression level.ResultsParental burnout positively correlates with child emotional comprehension skills, specifically understanding of external causes (B = 0.20, CI: 0.03; 0.37) and mental causes of emotions (B = 0.22, CI: 0.05; 0.40). This effect is gender dependent and is significantlyhigher for girls (B = 0.54, CI: 0.09; 0.98). The effect of maternal depression on emotion comprehension skills is also gender dependent: total scores on emotioncomprehension tasks are significantly higher for daughters of mothers with depression (B = 0.59, CI: 0.001; 1.18).DiscussionMaternal depression and parental burnout might provoke development of extra sensitivity and self-regulation strategies in girls.

Long-Term Effects of Maternal Depression during Postpartum and Early Parenthood Period on Child Socioemotional Development

“…Thus, although convincing evidence suggests that maternal depressive symptoms, specifically their intensity and duration, present risks for their children's health and development, the exact effects of PPD on the socioemotional child development are still poorly investigated. In Russia, on the contrary, a recent study with a modest sample size (n = 251) that focused on emotional development in preschoolers found no significant association with maternal depression at a child's mean age of 4.92 [17]. However, although the studies have consistently indicated a high prevalence of PPD ranging between 25% and 46% [18][19][20], to date there have been no longitudinal studies that examined the long-term impact of PPD, maternal depression during the early years and the depressive symptom trajectories on child socioemotional development.…”