[Relationship between social support and parental burnout in COVID-19 among Chinese young parents]

To explore potential categories of parental social support for young parents under the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) epidemic, and to examine correlations of different types of parents' social support with parental burnout.

In April 2020, we conducted an online voluntary survey among young parents across China with scales and a self-designed questionnaire. The latent profile analysis method was used to analyze parents' received social support and perceived social support. The social support categories were taken as independent variables and parental burnout as dependent variables, and multiple regression analysis was carried out to explore the relationship between received social support, perceived social support and parental burnout. Finally, the moderating effect of resilience between social support groups and parental burnout was discussed.

The results of latent profile analysis revealed three potential types of received social support, namely isolate, normal, and multi-support and the proportions of the respondents with the three profiles were 14.1%, 78.0%, and 7.9%. Four potential types of perceived social support, namely, indigent, medium, affluent and divergent and the proportions of the respondents with the four profiles were 13.7%, 29.6%, 25.3%, and 31.3%. Among them, the parents with divergent perceived social support had more perception of social support from the couple, family and relatives, but less perception of social support from net-friend, social organizations and the government. Regression analysis showed that there was no statistically significant correlation between different profiles of received social support and parental burnout, and among the groups of perceived social support, there was a statistically significant correlation between indigent and divergent types of social support and parental burnout. The divergent parents had lower levels of parental burnout compared with indigent (β=-0.120, P=0.003). Also, resilience moderated the effect of divergent perceived social support and parental burnout. Compared with the parents with low resilience, the parents with high resilience perceived divergent social support with lower parenting burnout.

There are prominent latent types of received social support and perceived social support under epidemic. People with divergent perceived social support (more perceived supports from partner, family and friends) are prone to have a relatively lower risk of parental burnout. Parents with higher resilience will be more sensitive to the support of close acquaintances, and can better resist parental burnout.