Abstract
Many Chinese adolescents suffer from academic burnout, and parenting stress may be a risk factor. The mediating mechanisms underlying this relationship are less known. This study examines the association between parenting stress and adolescent academic burnout, and tests whether adolescent mental health symptoms such as depression and anxiety symptoms, positive psychological traits such as self-efficacy and resilience mediate this association. A total of 1805 students aged 11 to 14 years and their parents were recruited from three schools in Shanghai, China, using multi-stage convenient cluster sampling. Parenting Stress Index-Short Form, Elementary School Student Burnout Scale, Multidimensional Anxiety Scale for Children-Chinese, Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale, Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale, and General Self-Efficacy Scale were completed by 98.52% of participants. Multivariable regression analysis and structural equation modeling were applied using SAS 9.4 and Mplus 8.3. Parenting stress was positively associated with adolescent academic burnout (β = 0.086, p < 0.001). Adolescent anxiety and depression symptoms (β = 0.046, p < 0.01), self-efficacy and resilience (β = 0.080, p < 0.001) significantly mediated this association with a chain mediating effect of 0.043 (p < 0.001). Adolescent mental health symptoms and positive psychological traits mediated the association between parenting stress and academic burnout. They can be targets for future interventions aiming at reducing academic burnout.
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Acknowledgments
This study received grant funding from the Stanford University Maternal and Child Health Research Institute (2021 CE award), the Stanford Rural Education Action Program and the Chinese National Social Science Fund (20BRK048). We thank the schools and students who participated and the volunteers who dedicated their valuable time and hard work to teach and to mentor migrant children.
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This study received grant funding from the Stanford University Maternal and Child Health Research Institute (2021 CE award), the Stanford Rural Education Action Program and the Chinese National Social Science Fund (20BRK048).
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T. L. conceptualized and designed the study. L. C., X. S., L. L., W. H., W. M., A. C. and T. L. participated in data collection, analysis, and interpretation. L. C. wrote the manuscript. X. S., S. M., and R. S. contributed to the review, editing and approval of the final manuscript.
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This study was approved by the Medical Research Ethics Committee of the School of Public Health of Fudan University in Shanghai, China (approve number: IRB#2019-11-0788) and by the Institutional Review Board at Stanford University, CA, USA (#53264).
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Before research commencement, all participating students and their parents read and signed an informed consent form.
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Dr. Singh has received research support from Stanford’s Maternal Child Health Research Institute and Stanford’s Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, National Institute of Mental Health, National Institute of Aging, Patient Centered Outcomes Research Institute, Johnson and Johnson, and the Brain and Behavior Research Foundation. She is on the advisory board for Sunovion and Skyland Trail, is a consultant for Johnson and Johnson, Alkermes, and Neumora. She has previously consulted for X, moonshot factory, Alphabet Inc. and Limbix Health. She receives honoraria from the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, and royalties from American Psychiatric Association Publishing and Thrive Global. No other authors report any conflicts of interest.
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Liu, C., She, X., Lan, L. et al. Parenting stress and adolescent academic burnout: the chain mediating role of mental health symptoms and positive psychological traits. Curr Psychol 43, 7643–7654 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-023-04961-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-023-04961-y