Parenting stress and adolescent academic burnout: the chain mediating role of mental health symptoms and positive psychological traits

Many Chinese adolescents suffer from academic burnout, and parenting stress may be a risk factor. The mediating mechanisms underlying this relationship are less known. This study examines the association between parenting stress and adolescent academic burnout, and tests whether adolescent mental health symptoms such as depression and anxiety symptoms, positive psychological traits such as self-efficacy and resilience mediate this association. A total of 1805 students aged 11 to 14 years and their parents were recruited from three schools in Shanghai, China, using multi-stage convenient cluster sampling. Parenting Stress Index-Short Form, Elementary School Student Burnout Scale, Multidimensional Anxiety Scale for Children-Chinese, Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale, Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale, and General Self-Efficacy Scale were completed by 98.52% of participants. Multivariable regression analysis and structural equation modeling were applied using SAS 9.4 and Mplus 8.3. Parenting stress was positively associated with adolescent academic burnout (β = 0.086, p < 0.001). Adolescent anxiety and depression symptoms (β = 0.046, p < 0.01), self-efficacy and resilience (β = 0.080, p < 0.001) significantly mediated this association with a chain mediating effect of 0.043 (p < 0.001). Adolescent mental health symptoms and positive psychological traits mediated the association between parenting stress and academic burnout. They can be targets for future interventions aiming at reducing academic burnout.