Abstract:
This study investigated the psychosocial predictors of parenting stress of nursing mothers of twins in South-Western Nigeria. A cross-sectional research design was adopted and data gathered from 276 mothers across 9 nursery schools in Lagos and Oyo state, Nigeria. Generated hypotheses were tested using appropriate inferential statistics. Findings revealed that collectively, perceived social support, work-related stress and personality traits (extroversion, agreeableness, openness to experience, conscientiousness and neuroticism) accounted for about 40% variance in parenting stress {R = .63; R2 = .40, F (7, 269) = 25.19; p<.05}; only perceived social support (? = .56; t = 10.71; p<.05) and conscientiousness (? = .22; t = 3.23; p<.05) independently predicted parenting stress. Also, age and number of children jointly accounted for about 15% variance in parenting stress {R = .39; R2 = .15, F (2, 274) = 8.17; p<.05}; only number of children (? = .20; t = 3.07; p<.05) independently predicted parenting stress. It was recommended from the findings that primary care hospital ensure to give proper orientation to both the husband and wife during prenatal and postnatal care, the essence of assisting the mother even after giving birth. |
