Longitudinal Maternal Stress, Social Support, and Their Associations with Parental Burnout During the Pandemic

Objective. Some mothers with a tendency to experience stress may have been predisposed to parental burnout during the COVID-19 pandemic in response to the double jeopardy of high burden and low social support. By taking into account parental functioning before the pandemic, the extent of this double jeopardy may be gauged. Design. This longitudinal Dutch cohort study (N = 1,787) estimated the predictive role of stable maternal stress and the availability of social support during the pandemic for symptoms of parental burnout during the pandemic. Maternal stress was measured at 3 months, 12 months, 2 years, and 4 years after birth, and social support and parental burnout were assessed during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, when the children were 8–11 years old. The Trait-State-Occasion model was used to operationalize the underlying stable component of maternal stress from 3 months to 4 years after the birth of the first child, which enabled us to leverage longitudinal data to deliver a best estimate of the parents’ conditions (i.e. how much stress they experienced) before the crisis. Results. Maternal stress was explained on average for 69% by stable and 31% by occasion-specific components. During the pandemic, stable maternal stress was associated with parental burnout, and higher social support was related to lower symptoms of parental burnout (even after controlling for stable maternal stress). Conclusions. Maternal stress should be considered as a continuous vulnerability factor in the face of heightened burden and low resources. Furthermore, mothers who experience little or no social support may be at increased risk for thoughts and feelings related to parental burnout when faced with a crisis.