Beyond overwhelmed: A new measure of the functional impact of toxic stress on parents of young children

Amanda J. Moreno, Kaela Byers, Emma Monahan, JoAnn L. Robinson and Julie McCrae

Children and Youth Services Review, 2021, vol. 131, issue C

Abstract: This study investigates the reliability and construct validity of the Functional Impact of Toxic Stress for Parents (FITS-P) measure in an online crowdsourced pilot sample (n = 202) and a pediatric clinic sample (n = 889). The objective of the FITS-P is to provide a low burden (i.e., four items) measure for capturing aspects of the parental side of the toxic stress equation, specifically defining toxic stress as being severe enough to go beyond feelings of overwhelm to functional impairment in major domains of life. Patterns of item endorsement were analyzed in both samples, and construct validity was assessed in the clinic sample in relation to a series of measures of parental stress and psychological resources also administered to parents. Overall, analyses supported reliability and validity, and suggest utility of this new measure. Most importantly, it was found that only a single FITS-P item endorsed was sufficient to produce a significant increase in risk for most of the construct validity measures. This suggests that, as hoped, functional impact may capture parental variance in the toxic stress constellation more efficiently and effectively than typical methods such as life event stress, adverse childhood experiences, or perceived stressfulness of only the parenting role. Results are discussed in terms of the promise of the FITS-P as a low-burden assessment that can be used in two-generational approaches to ameliorating toxic stress.

Keywords: Toxic stress; Parenting; Early life stress; Parent-child relationships (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:cysrev:v:131:y:2021:i:c:s019074092100356x

DOI: 10.1016/j.childyouth.2021.106280

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