Characteristics of mother’s unidentified complaints and feelings about child-rearing : the roles of childcare support in a preschool and nursery school

Abstract

[Objective] This study aimed to clarify the characteristics of unidentified complaints and feelings about child-rearing of young children’s mothers by a type of school. [Methods] A cross-sectional survey was conducted with mothers who raised children aged 1 to 6 years and used a preschool or nursery school for day care. Contents of questionnaire were the General Health Questionnaire (GHQ12), feelings about child-rearing, and the degree of the unidentified complaints. [Results] Based on the answers collected from 739 mothers of 3 preschools and 6 nursery schools, the following results were obtained. 1) Mothers using the nursery schools had low mental health degree. 2) Preschoolers’ mothers had strong feelings of “burden from the restraint of child-rearing” and those whose children attended nursery schools had strong “sense of anxiety toward child-rearing”. 3) 71.3% of them were aware of unidentified complaint and the mothers of the nursery schools were more aware of it than preschoolers’ ones. Their highly complaining symptoms were “fatigue”, “bad mood”, “stiff shoulders” and “a feeling of weariness”. 4) Regardless of daycare types, those who had low mental health degree or were aware of unidentified complaint had strong negative feelings of child-rearing and low positive feelings of that. Multiple factors affecting negative feelings of child-rearing were confirmed in the preschoolers’ mothers, but not in the mothers of the nursery schools. [Discussion] It is necessary to consider childcare support and health support measures based on the actual conditions of mothers to reduce mothers’ emotional burdens.