PARENTAL STRESS AND CHILD EMOTIONAL-BEHAVIORAL DISEASE: A CASES REPORT STUDY

Introduction Parental stress is defined as the result of disparity perceived by parents between child requests and their own abilities to deal adequately with them. In particular parents of children with organic and psychiatric diseases are vulnerable to experience higher stress levels due to the major onerousity of their child condition. Parental stress and family empowerment were shown to influence children's and adolescents' outcome, especially in case of psychotherapeutic treatments. Moreover, empowerment turns out to be an important changing mechanism for child psycho behavioural disorders as a mediator between familiar therapy and outcome. Aim The present study aims to deeply explore factors that are likely to impact on stress and empowerment in parents of children with a psychiatric diagnosis. Sample and Methods Parenting stress and empowerment have been examined among 45 parents of children with a psychiatric disorder. The sample was divided in two groups and times: 41 adolescents were tested at T 0 (diagnostic assessment), 19 adolescents were retested after at least six months for T 1. For this research we used three questionnaires: Family Empowerment Scale (FES) and Parent Stress Index short form (PSI-sf) which were filled individually in by parents, while Child Behaviour Checklist (CBCL) was filled in by the parental couple. Results and discussion Parenting stress appeared to be higher in patients' parents and it varied according to disorder severity, while socio-demographic variables seemed to influence the stress levels only to a slight extent. Moreover, parental stress and empowerment influenced each other within the parental couple. Correlation analysis between FES and PSI scales' scores showed the presence of linear inverse relationships between parental empowerment and stress, in both mother and father. Moreover, comparing parental stress and empowerment levels between fathers and mothers through T test, relevant differences emerged between fathers' and mothers' empowerment and defensive reactions. From the follow up analysis of the 19 retested children, it emerged an improvement of competences and a reduction of the psychiatric symptomatology. As regards to FES scores, differences between T0 and T1 emerged only for mothers who seemed to experience a higher sense of competence at the follow up. Conclusions The results of the study point to a significant relationship between parental stress and empowerment in families with psychiatric children, high lining differences between father and mother. In particular, this research is one of the first studies which considered also father figure who is often neglected in child relationships. Developing interventions aimed to support parenting and to involve fathers in the parent-child relationship, focused on increasing parents empowerment and self-efficacy, could contribute to decrease stress and positively influence children's psychopathology.