Perception of working mothers on nature of stress in single child - A qualitative study

Trends like nuclear family set up, raising a single child and both parents working are emerging in metro cities in India. Though stress is being widely studied in adults, but the understanding about stress in childhood is still a less explored area. Therefore, the current study was done with the objective to understand the perception of working mother professionals about nature of stress in only child in a nuclear family. A sample of 15 working mother professionals was selected through purposive sampling from Bangalore city, India. A semi- structured interview method was used for in-depth interviews. Stress being a perceived phenomenon, interpretative phenomenological analysis was adopted to analyse the transcripts, with the help of ATLAS. TI 6.2 version. Results revealed that parents were not fully aware of the signs and symptoms of stress. The results are presented in themes under four broad domains- Psychological, Emotional, Physical and Cognitive signs. Based on such studies, modules for creating awareness about nature of stress in childhood can be developed for parents and teachers.