PARENTAL AND ECONOMIC STRESS IN RELATION TO SCHOOL-AGE CHILDREN'S PEER RELATIONSHIPS AND ANXIETY EXPERIENCED SIX YEARS LATER.
Contributors: Wayne State University.
Published: 1989
Number of pages: 146
Subjects: Health Sciences, Nursing.; Economics, General.; Sociology, Individual and Family Studies.; Education, Educational Psychology.
Description: The purpose of this descriptive correlational study was to determine whether there is a longterm relationship between parental stress and school age children's anxiety and peer related behaviors. This was a six year follow-up of 39 of the 52 families from Friedemann's original research on parental stress and depression and children's peer behavior. The majority of the families in Friedemann's study had suffered some degree of unemployment in the early 1980's. All of the families had a twelve year old child. The theoretical framework for the study was derived from Friedemann's Conceptual Framework of Systemic Organization for Nursing of Individuals and Families, and McCubbin and Patterson's Double ABCX Model. Data for the research were collected by both mail and telephone on the Social Readjustment Rating Scale, State/Trait Anxiety Inventory for Children, Children's Report of Peer Relations, and the Interview Schedule. Controlling for parental and economic stress from 1983-1988, partial correlations were obtained. Mothers' stress in 1983 predicted 18% of the variance in boys' state anxiety and 19% of the variance in peer rejection as perceived by girls. Economic stress in 1983 accounted for 45% of the variance in girls' state anxiety, 39% of the variance in girls' trait anxiety, and 19% of the variance in peer rejection as perceived by girls. This study has implications for nurses working with school age children in both clinical and home settings. It has provided practitioners with information from which to formulate a profile of the child at risk. Recommendations include continued study of samples of children in families experiencing both parental and economic stress.
Notes: Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 51-04, Section: B, page: 1749.

Thesis (PH.D.)--WAYNE STATE UNIVERSITY, 1989.

School code: 0254.