Parenting Stress and Perceived Family Functioning of Chinese Parents in Hong Kong: Implications for Social Work Practice (original) (raw)
Related papers
Social Indicators Research, 2011
With the recognition of the crucial role of family and with the belief that parents have the greatest influence on a child's life, family and parent education has been widely practiced in Hong Kong and many other countries as measure for poverty alleviation. A study, employed quantitative method of a cross-sectional parent survey (N = 10,386) was conducted to comprehend needs and parenting practice of poor families, and to identify appropriate strategies to promote family and parent education in Hong Kong. Regression analysis was used to investigate the association between family variables, psychological stress and parenting behavior. The study identified five categories of disadvantaged families and salient factors that distinguished families from the normal population based on the findings of discriminant analysis. Moreover, data indicates that family relationship and social networks are protective factors to economically disadvantaged families, whereas sense of powerlessness amplifies the negative effects of low income. Base on the findings, the paper suggests that strategies for poverty alleviation that focus purely on parenting or parent education are fragmented and fail to address the complexity of poverty as a social issue. A holistic perspective that goes beyond the scope of parent education to support families, adopting a family perspective in poverty-alleviation work and service provision, and addressing barriers constrain parenting are the future service directions.
Asian Social Work and Policy Review, 2009
Although enhancing family functioning has become a rising concern of social workers in Chinese contexts such as Hong Kong, little has been known on perceived family functioning and family resources. To fill in this knowledge gap, this article reports part of the results of a telephone survey conducted in Hong Kong, aiming to identify the sex differences in these two areas. The results of the study have shown that Chinese women perceived better affective involvement, one of the crucial indicators of family functioning, than Chinese men. However, among the different family resources, men rated better physical and mental well-being whereas women's social connection was stronger than men's. Further analysis have shown that the linkage of three family resources (namely stress coping efficacy, time spent with family and income) to perceived family functioning was statistically significant irrespective of genders. Implications of this study for social work practice are discussed at the end of the article.
BMJ open, 2018
Chronic stress has adverse effects on health. Adults and children from low-income families are subject to multiple sources of stress. Existing literature about economic hardship mostly focuses on either adults or children but not both. Moreover, there is limited knowledge on the relationship between parental generalised stress and child health problems. This study aims to explore the bidirectional relationship between parental stress and child health in Chinese low-income families and to identify other modifiable factors influencing this relationship. This prospective cohort study will sample 254 low-income parent-child pairs and follow them up for 24 months with assessments at three time points (baseline, 12 and 24 months) on parental stress, health-related quality of life (HRQOL) and child health and behaviour using both subjective measures and objective physiological parameters. This study will collect data using standardised measures on HRQOL and behaviours of children as well a...
Child & Family Social Work, 2002
This qualitative study aims to understand the parenting distress and parental investment of Hong Kong Chinese parents with a child having an emotional or behavioural problem. The parents of 24 children and adolescents who sought psychiatric consultation within the study period were interviewed using open-ended questions. The data revealed a vicious reciprocal interaction in which the symptoms affected the parents' psychosocial well-being, which in turn impacted unfavourably on the identified patient. With three exceptions, the parents in this study had engaged in different activities prior to the psychiatric consultation, including information search, changes in the methods of parenting, attempts to reduce family stress, reliance on superstitious beliefs, and reaching out for professional help and social services. The parental investment indicated parents' resilience in facing the child's problems. Implications for service development and social work intervention are discussed. Parenting distress and parental investment of Hong Kong Chinese parents J L
Family Stress on Adolescents in Hong Kong and the Mainland of China
International Journal of Adolescence and Youth, 2000
Assessing the significance of the family, a notion of the family emerges as a system that provides important resources for its members, but also creates stress upon them. Despite the importance of family effects, no study has examined large samples of Chinese adolescents in both the mainland of China and Hong Kong. To fill the empirical void and extend the research focus on individual family stressors, the present study surveyed 2,142 Chinese secondary school students in Hong Kong and the mainland of China. Results from random-effect regression analysis show that environmental strain, parental expectation for the adolescent's academic study, quarrels, worry over finances in the family, family support, and parental and sibling hassles were significantly related to the adolescent's distress. The significant relationships among the family stressors support theses of personal relevance and contagion. Furthermore, the relationships equally apply to adolescents in the mainland of China and Hong Kong. Family support did not significantly moderate relationships between family stress and the adolescent's distress.
International Journal of Social Science and Humanity, 2016
This study examines the relationship between parenting stress and perceived children's social problem behavior. The sample consists of 100 Chinese working mothers were sampled by cluster sampling methods. Parenting Stress Index-short Form and Eyberg child Behavior Inventory were employed to measure the parenting stress and children social problem behavior respectively. The result revealed that parenting stress is significantly positive correlated with perceived children social problem behavior in intensity (r = .431**, p < 0.01) and problem score (r = .716 **, p (0.0I). Besides, parental distress (r = .340**, p < 0.01), parent child dysfunction interaction (r = .398**, p < 0.01) and difficult child (r = .389**, p < 0.01) also moderately associated with perceived children social problem behavior in intensity score. The findings also noted parental distress (r = .435**, p < 0.01), parent child dysfunction interaction (r = .731**, p < 0.01) and difficult child (r = .672**, p < 0.01) also moderately associated with perceived children social problem behavior in problem score. Interestingly, the result showed household income (r =-.233**, p < 0.01) and numbers of children (r = .333 **, p < 0.01) are related to parenting stress. The result showed the higher the working hours, the lower the parenting stress (r =-.424**, p < 0.01). Hence, this study gives a guideline for the policy makers and counselors to design program which can benefit the parents and children as well.
Journal of Research on Adolescence, 2010
In this brief report, we investigated whether the Family Stress Model could be replicated with a sample of Chinese American families. Path analyses with 444 adolescents and their parents provided support for the model's generalizability. Specifically, mothers' and fathers' reports of economic status (i.e., income, financial, and job instability) were associated with parents' economic stress. Economic stress and economic status were related to parental depressive symptoms, which, in turn, were associated with more hostile and coercive parenting, less nurturing and involved parenting, and greater interparental hostility. Finally, mothers' hostile and coercive parenting was directly related to both adolescents' academic and sociobehavioral outcomes, whereas fathers' nurturing and involved parenting was related to academic but not sociobehavioral outcomes.
Frontiers in Psychology, 2021
With increasing attention on the role of parenting stress on family functioning and children’s development, one area that has been neglected is how such relations differ across cultures. Although sometimes viewed as homogeneous, Asian countries often have markedly different belief systems. Cross-cultural studies require instruments that have been validated in different socio-cultural contexts. The widely used parenting stress index-short form (PSI-SF) has been used in several locations. However, results regarding its factorial structure have been mixed. Furthermore, there are only a few cross-cultural comparison studies. This study examined the factorial structure of an abridged version of the PSI-SF with data from Hong Kong (N = 258) and Thailand (N = 190). The results from confirmatory factor analyses indicated that, in both cultures, a three-factorial structure provides the best model fit. Furthermore, we found evidence for partial metric invariance, suggesting that the test scor...