L'épuisement des mères de jeunes enfants : une étude exploratoire

This study made it possible to obtain an estimate of the frequency of maternal exhaustion in a French population as well as to explore the factors that could be associated with it. Especially, this research has shown the link between maternal exhaustion and some of the stressors having the greatest impact on parental distress, such as be unemployed, financial difficulties, depression or a low sense of competence. Like job-related exhaustion, maternal exhaustion would be the result of exposure to various and inherent stressors in the maternal role. Thus, while some sociodemographic factors are linked to burnout, the most important factors seem to remain those related to the traits of the parents and can therefore be given special attention in intervention programs (Mikolajczak, Raes, Avalosse, & Roskam, 2017). These findings provide insight into possible avenues of prevention such as the follow-up of mothers with a low sense of competence and a new perspective on the benefits of working with mothers of young children.