Maternal Burnout Syndrome: Contextual and Psychological Associated Factors.

Becoming a parent is one of the most significant experiences in a woman's life. Including substantial and long-lasting mental, social, and physical charge, the parenting experience may also be a potentially stressful and overwhelming task. Since the eighties, the notion of parental burnout syndrome has gained increasing attention, but its contextual and psychological factors need to be better identified. To investigate a large array of contextual and psychological factors associated with maternal burnout syndrome in a French community-based population in order to contribute to better operationalize the notion of parental burnout and to explore its determinants. A total of 304 French-speaking mothers (mean age = 34.8 years, = 6.72) completed a set of questionnaires including a sociodemographic form (in order to gather general information about the mothers, their spouses, and children living at home). The Perceived Stress Scale, the Maslach Burnout Inventory adapted to parents (MBI-parental), the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale, the Parental Stress Index-Short Form and the Ways of Coping Checklist were used in this study. Multivariate linear regression analyses revealed that scores on the MBI-parental version were strongly and positively associated with depressive and anxiety symptoms, as well as with perceived stress related to parenthood and parenting stress levels. Moreover, using the task-oriented coping style in parenthood was strongly and positively associated with personal accomplishment. Conversely, some sociodemographic characteristics were found to be negatively associated with maternal burnout: being employed, working full time and being a mother living without a coparent. The construct of maternal burnout syndrome seems to be linked to a conjunction of psychological and contextual factors associated with maternal exhaustion. The implication of the results for prevention and intervention strategies are discussed.