Parental Burnout: Validity of the Croatian Version of the Parental Burnout Questionnaire

Authors

  • Ivana Macuka Sveučilište u Zadru, Odjel za psihologiju, Zadar, Hrvatska
  • Ana Šimunić Sveučilište u Zadru, Odjel za psihologiju, Zadar, Hrvatska
  • Ina Reić Ercegovac Sveučilište u Splitu, Filozofski fakultet u Splitu, Odsjek za psihologiju, Split, Hrvatska

Keywords:

parenting, parental burnout, parental perfectionism, neglect, violence, questionnaire validation

Abstract

The parenting role is one of the most demanding life roles that can be very fulfilling, but also very demanding and stressful at the same time. Recently, there has been significant interest in studying burnout in parenting, which is characterized by extreme exhaustion associated with parenting, emotional distancing from children, feelings of inefficiency in parenting, and doubts about the ability to be a good parent. This paper presents the validation and metric characteristics of the Parental Burnout Assessment (PBA) by Roskam et al. (2018) (exhaustion in one's parental role, contrast with previous parental self, feelings of being fed up with one's parental role and emotional distancing from one's children). The Croatian version of the PBA showed satisfactory metric characteristics determined on a sample of 1,025 parents (90% of mothers) with an average age of 40 years. The results of the confirmatory factor analysis confirmed the assumed theoretical four-factor structure of the questionnaires, along with the factors being grouped into one superior factor of burnout in the parental role. Significant expected correlations between parental self-assessments of burnout in parenting and the propensity for perfectionism in parenting and neglect and violence towards children also support the validity of the questionnaire. The internal consistency reliability coefficient for the total measure of burnout in parenthood is high (.98), and it is also high for subscales (from .87 to .96).

Published

2022-12-09

Issue

Section

Articles