Document Type : Research Article
Authors
1 Faculty Member of Organization for Educational Research and Planning (OERP), Tehran. Iran
2 M.A. student in General Psychology, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran
Abstract
Introduction
Although research findings indicated the adverse and negative effect of parenting stress on mothers' marital satisfaction, the internal mechanism of this relationship and the effect of father's behavior on marital problems have not been investigated. The importance of studying the father's behavior is because the problems of married life are related not only to the mother's behavior but also to the father's behavior. Also, considering that high levels of stress in raising children harms the mother's physical and mental health and endangers the normal functioning of the family, the present study aims to: First, provide research support for family studies by examining the relationship between mother's parenting stress and her marital satisfaction. Second, provide a model to investigate the mechanism of depression and marital conflict in the relationship between parenting stress and marital satisfaction. Third, past studies of couple relationships have ignored the possible effects of empathy. In this study, father's tendency instead of empathy ability was used as a moderator in the relationship between mother's parenting stress and marital satisfaction with the mediation of depression and marital conflict.
Method
The research method was descriptive and correlation type. The studied population included all the employed couples with children from Tehran in 1401, and 212 couples were selected as a sample using convenience sampling method. Mothers responded to the Parenting Stress Scale (Berry & Jones, 1995), Self-Rating Depression Scale (Zung, 1965), Conflict Behavior Scales (Rusbult et al., 1986 and Strauss, 1979) and Marital Satisfaction Scale (Olson et al., 1982) and fathers responded to the Basic Empathy Scale (Jolliffe & Farrington, 2006). In order to analyze the data, Pearson's correlation and multiple regression (models 6 and 85) were used in Hayes Process in SPSS24 software.
Results
The findings indicated that mother’s parenting stress has a negative correlation with their marital satisfaction, depression and marital conflict play a mediating role in the relationship between mother’s parenting stress and their marital satisfaction, and fathers' empathy tendency also moderates this relationship. This means that fathers can with empathy for mothers, reduce depression and marital conflicts caused by parenting stress and finally their low levels of marital satisfaction.
Conclusion
In sum, these findings highlighted the serious impact of mother’s parenting stress of in keeping and caring for their children on their mental health and quality of life together, as well as the important role of fathers' empathy in reducing these consequences. The results can be used to design an intervention and a comprehensive approach to improve the mental well-being of mothers.
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