Understanding the effects of post migration stress on parenting stress in asylum seeking populations: An exploration of possible causes and evaluation of interventions.

Abstract

Parenting stress can be considered as an adverse reaction to the demands of parenting which may lead to less desirable parenting practices. Moreover, research has found that parenting stress is associated with an increase in challenging behaviour in children.
Asylum seekers may be more vulnerable to parenting stress due to the extraneous stressors that they face owing to their legal status. Asylum seekers do not yet have the right to remain in their host country and often endure lengthy legal processes. Further, they encounter contextual stressors such as unstable housing, economic worries and loss of social support. Commonly these stressors can be classed as post migration stressors. This thesis acknowledges the intersectionality between research into parenting stress and research into the mental health of asylum seekers and seeks to address the current gap in literature on parenting stress in asylum seeking populations and contributing knowledge to this area of research. Furthermore, this thesis considers the post migration stressors that concern asylum seeking parents, how parenting stress manifests within this population and how support may help to ameliorate some of these stressors with a core aim of furthering the understanding of asylum-seeking parents experiences of parenting stress. Paper one comprises of a qualitative study using grounded theory to uncover pathways leading to post migration stress. Lack of agency emerged as a core theme with subcategories of “a new normal”, “managing official process” and “physical and mental health” identified through parents own narratives. Paper two quantitively measured parenting stress, post migration stress and depression in asylum seeking parents. Results suggest that post migration stress significantly contributes to parenting stress, specifically concerns around family conflict, finance, and discrimination. Further we found that time spent seeking asylum and gender moderated these results. Paper three examined available interventions supporting asylum seeking parents by synthesising the existing literature to understand how support may reduce parenting stress and child behaviour problems. Results from n=14 studies found that parenting interventions had a positive effect on punitive parenting practices and conduct problems in children. The insight from the participants narratives on their experiences, the statistical analysis of established measures to give a deeper understanding of associations of post migration and parenting stress, and a systematic synthesis of current literature on parenting support, feed into the core aim of this thesis by each taking a unique methodological approach to address the research question.
This PhD was completed using the three-paper format and was made possible through funding from the ECRH and South Coast Doctoral partnership which included extra funding for travel and data collection.

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Identifiers

ORCID for Ellen Elizabeth Hedstrom: orcid.org/0000-0002-2952-4612

ORCID for Jana Kreppner: orcid.org/0000-0003-3527-9083

ORCID for Hanna Kovshoff: orcid.org/0000-0001-6041-0376

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