Enav Yael, Iron Yaara, Kivenson Bar-On Inbal, Scharf Miri
Department of Counseling and Human Development, University of Haifa, Haifa, Israel.
Sci Rep. 2024 Dec 6;14(1):30415. doi: 10.1038/s41598-024-79020-y.
The COVID-19 pandemic has negatively influenced families across the world and contributed to the likelihood of increased parental burnout and decreased parental psychological well-being. However, not all parents experienced parental burnout during the pandemic. In the current study, we focused on protective factors that buffered the negative effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on parents and supported parents' quality of life. Based on previous literature, we hypothesized optimism, humor, and resilience will be associated with lower levels of parental burnout. Two hundred and eighty-one Israeli parents participated in the study, completing questionnaires during the government-mandated lockdown. Questionnaires examined information pertaining to both participants' personal characteristics (optimism and pessimism, self-enhancing humor, resilience, parental stress, and perceptions of the youngest child's functioning) and background characteristics (parental age, gender, health condition, socioeconomic status, employment status, and youngest child's age) to examine the relationship between these variables and parental burnout. Findings indicate that resilience, optimism, and humor facilitated reduced parental burnout and enhanced parental well-being during the pandemic. However, these variables were not associated with parents' stress perception. This study sheds light on the importance of having an optimistic perspective, positive sense of humor, and resilience at times of prolonged stress. Implications for interventions targeting optimistic attitudes and humor are suggested.
新冠疫情对全球家庭产生了负面影响，增加了父母倦怠的可能性，并降低了父母的心理健康水平。然而，并非所有父母在疫情期间都经历了父母倦怠。在本研究中，我们关注的是那些缓冲了新冠疫情对父母的负面影响并支持父母生活质量的保护因素。基于以往文献，我们假设乐观、幽默和心理韧性将与较低水平的父母倦怠相关。281名以色列父母参与了该研究，在政府强制封锁期间完成了问卷调查。问卷考察了与参与者个人特征（乐观与悲观、自我提升型幽默、心理韧性、父母压力以及对最小孩子功能的认知）和背景特征（父母年龄、性别、健康状况、社会经济地位、就业状况以及最小孩子的年龄）相关的信息，以检验这些变量与父母倦怠之间的关系。研究结果表明，心理韧性、乐观和幽默有助于在疫情期间减轻父母倦怠并提升父母幸福感。然而，这些变量与父母的压力感知并无关联。本研究揭示了在长期压力时期保持乐观心态、积极幽默感和心理韧性的重要性。文中还提出了针对乐观态度和幽默的干预措施的启示。
