Mental health of working parents during the COVID-19 pandemic: can resilience buffer the impact of psychosocial work stress on depressive symptoms?

BMC Public Health

Research

Susann Steudte-Schmiedgen¹  Marie Kopp²  Stephanie Brym²  Judith T. Mack²  Victoria Weise²  Susan Garthus-Niegel³ 

[1] Department of Psychotherapy and Psychosomatic Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, Technische Universität Dresden, Fetscherstr. 74, 01307, Dresden, Germany;Institute and Policlinic of Occupational and Social Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, Technische Universität Dresden, Dresden, Germany;Institute and Policlinic of Occupational and Social Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, Technische Universität Dresden, Dresden, Germany;Department of Psychotherapy and Psychosomatic Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, Technische Universität Dresden, Fetscherstr. 74, 01307, Dresden, Germany;Institute for Systems Medicine and Faculty of Human Medicine, MSH Medical School Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany;Department of Childhood and Families, Norwegian Institute of Public Health, Oslo, Norway;

关键词: Working parents;    Work-privacy conflict;    Effort-reward imbalance;    Resilience;    Depressive symptoms;    Moderation;    DREAM study;   

DOI  :  10.1186/s12889-022-14582-y

 received in 2022-02-03, accepted in 2022-11-09,  发布年份 2022

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

BackgroundThe COVID-19 pandemic has confronted working parents with an accumulation of stressors regarding changes in work, family, and social life, putting their mental health at risk. Stressors include altered working conditions such as working from home or changes in working hours as well as the difficulty to reconcile work and childcare due to the closure of childcare facilities. The present study examined the relationship of psychosocial work stress (i.e., work-privacy conflict and effort-reward imbalance at work) and depressive symptoms in working parents and whether this association was moderated by individual resilience.MethodsData of the present study (n = 452) were collected in Germany between May and June 2020 as part of the DREAMCORONA study. A subsample of working mothers (n = 191) and fathers (n = 261) completed the subscale for work-privacy conflict (WPC) of the Copenhagen Psychosocial Questionnaire, the Effort-Reward Imbalance (ERI) Questionnaire, the Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale (CD-RISC), and the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale (EPDS). Multiple linear regression analyses including moderation were performed, controlling for gender, working hours per week, and a lifetime history of depression as potential confounders.ResultsBoth WPC (β = 0.336, p < .001) and ERI (β = 0.254, p < .001) were significantly associated with depressive symptoms. Resilience moderated the relationship between ERI and depressive symptoms (β = − 0.101, p = .018), indicating that higher resilience weakened the relationship. However, this effect was not found regarding the relationship between WPC and depressive symptoms (β = 0.055, p = .167).ConclusionsThe results highlight the need for measures to reduce psychosocial work stressors such as WPC and ERI during the COVID-19 pandemic on the one hand and to promote resilience on the other hand. The findings partially support the potential protective role of resilience buffering the association between psychosocial stress and mental health in working parents. Longitudinal studies are needed to confirm this effect.

【 授权许可】

CC BY   
© The Author(s) 2022

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