THE MEDIATING ROLE OF PARENTAL PSYCHOLOGICAL HEALTH IN CHINESE FAMILIES IN AN IMPOVERISHED CONTEXT IN HONG KONG

Abstract

Based on data collected from 504 parents in Tin Shui Wai, oneof the lowest income-level communities in Hong Kong, thepresent study found that, in addition to financial strain, cumulativefamily stressors associated with poverty had deleteriousimpacts on family functioning and parental psychological health.Furthermore, negative effects of cumulative family stressors onfamily functioning were significantly shrunk after adding parentalself-efficacy as mediator, and became insignificant after addingparenting stress and both parental self-efficacy and parentingstress as mediators. The results of this study are consonant tofamily stress model and demoralization thesis, postulating thatexperiencing multiple stressors at family level coalesced withpoverty may adversely influence family development andrelationships through their detriments on parental psychologicalhealth. Implications for service practices were briefly discussed.