Influence of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Parenting Stress Across Asian Countries: A Cross-National Study – Article Summary
Kurata S, Hiraoka D, Ahmad Adlan AS, et al. Influence of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Parenting Stress Across Asian Countries: A Cross-National Study. Front Psychol. 2021;12:782298. Published 2021 Dec 21. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2021.782298
Purpose: Since the onset of COVID-19, studies showed an increase in parenting stress in Japan due to school closures and restrictions on daily life. In contrast, there has been little research on the impact of COVID-19 on parenting stress in other countries in Asia. The purpose of this study was to determine if COVID-19 increased parenting stress across Asia and whether there were country-specific, regional, or environmental risk factors that led to increased parenting stress.
Methods: Researchers conducted an online survey soon after a spike in Covid-19 cases in India. They measured parenting stress using the Parenting Stress Index, and fear and anxiety around Covid-19 using the Coronavirus Anxiety Scale in India (n = 142), Malaysia (n = 69), Japan (n =182) and the United States (n = 203). Also, researchers looked at whether people who had adverse childhood experiences (ACE) were at an increased risk of developing parenting stress.
Results: There was a significant increase in parenting stress across all countries, when compared to participants memories of their lives prior to COVID-19. Also, ACE was a major risk factor for parenting stress because it led to an increase in anxiety and fear around COVID-19.
Conclusion: The research suggests a need to screen and improve the mental health in individuals at a high risk of developing parenting stress in Asian and Western countries as well as globally.
Strengths and Weaknesses: This study had quite a few weaknesses. First, the online survey platforms were not consistent across the countries which could lead to bias in participation as well as the characteristics of the participants. Second, the sample size of the study was small when compared to previous studies looking at parenting stress. Also, age and gender were not consistent across all the countries. For example, in India and North America, participants used the MTurk online platform to complete the survey and reports show users of this platform are majority male. Fourth, when using a self-administered survey there is always the risk of participants choosing socially acceptable answers. Lastly, the study could not conduct a real-time assessment of parenting stress prior to the pandemic so it utilized retrospective responses which are not always reliable. The strengths of this study were its ability to show the need to evaluate parents for parenting stress in relation to COVID-19 and identified ACE as a major risk factor for developing parenting stress.
3 responses to “Influence of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Parenting Stress Across Asian Countries: A Cross-National Study – Article Summary”
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Really interesting topic. I’m curious about what went into selecting the Asian countries that they did. Why not choose Nepal or Singapore for instance? And could selecting the specific countries that they did impact the results found when comparing data to the U.S?
Great work.
Really cool article Jordan! I definitely saw this first hand in my household during COVID so its cool to see that there are studies about this.
As I was reading through the list of outcome measures, my eye was drawn to this one and was excited to see what research is saying about parent stress levels. I can imagine that COVID has had an exponential impact on those levels. I’m curious what the results would be if they compared the results of each country to one another. I have a strong feeling that the United States reported very high numbers. Similar to Zachs comment I’m curious what the numbers would be for China and why they were not included in the study.