PARENTAL STRESS AND ITS EFFECTS ON WAYS OF COPING AMONG PARENTS OF YOUNG ADOLESCENTS IN KOTA KINABALU, SABAH MALAYSIA

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to identify parental stress levels among parents of young adolescent children and to examine the effects of parental stress on their ways of coping. This study employed a quantitative research design which includes 2 sets of questionnaires. The Parental Stress Scale by Berry and Jones (1995) was used to measure parental stress and ways of coping with stress was measured by the revised version of Ways of Coping Questionnaire by Folkman, Lazarus, Gruen, and DeLongis (1986). Three hundred and sixty-three parents of 13-year-old children participated in this study. The results showed that these parents were experiencing high parental stress. The results also revealed that among the 8 ways of coping, only 3 ways of coping contributed significantly towards parental stress. These were ‘distancing’, ‘self-controlling’ and ‘escape avoidance’. This finding confirms the theory that coping with stress in negative ways would increase the levels of stress.