Effects of stressors on parenting attitudes and family functioning in a primary prevention program

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationships between social stressors and parental attitudes and family functioning. Data were collected from a non-random sample of 542 parents of newborns at local hospital systems. Significant relationships were found between number of stressors and more functional scores for each of the outcome variables. In addition, females had significantly higher scores than males for each parenting attitude variable. Small but significant relationships were also found between perceptions of economic well-being and social support and each of the parenting and family functioning variables. Implications of the findings for primary prevention programming are discussed.