HAIFA, Israel (Press Release) — During the current war, parents in Israel are overcome by ongoing feelings of fatigue, psychological tension, and exhaustion related to their parental functioning (“parental burnout”). Among parents whose partners have been called up for reserve duty, the situation is even more serious, with levels of parental burnout as high as 3.5 times the global average.
The study, led by doctoral student Mor Keleynikov of the University of Haifa, also found that in terms of mental health indexes, Israeli parents show a slight improvement over time (for example, in their levels of anxiety and depression), particularly if they attempted to reevaluate negative situations and feelings concerning the war. Despite this, the levels of distress remain very high
A new study examined the followed question: “Does the way parents coped with their emotions at the start of the war predict the change in their mental wellbeing?” In order to answer this question, the study compared the mental health of parents in Israel at two points: when the war broke out, and eight months later. A key index in this study was parental burnout. This term refers to a situation dominated by profound fatigue, mental tension, and a sense of exhaustion regarding parental functioning.
In this situation, parents have a sense of ongoing psychological and emotional burden that leads to feelings of inability in coping with the demands of parenthood. While other indexes of mental wellbeing, such as depression and anxiety, showed a slight improvement over time, no improvement has been seen in the index of parental burnout over the course of the war. However, parents who chose not to express their feelings externally, or who sought to “reexamine” their feelings and look at the situation from different angles, showed lower levels of parental burnout than those who persisted in their negative mindsets and externalized negative emotions.
When parents and children are exposed to war together, as in the case of the current Iron Swords War, parental functioning is complicated due to the distress and danger facing both parents and children. In November 2023, about one month after the war began, a survey was conducted among Israeli parents, who completed a questionnaire addressing levels of depression, anxiety, stress, post-traumatic symptoms, and parental burnout. The questionnaire also asked parents to report how they are coping with negative events and emotions, based on three possible responses: (1) reevaluation (also termed reappraisal) – an attempt to look at the event in a different way in order to reduce negative emotions; (2) suppression of emotional expression – an attempt not to show the emotion externally; and (3) rumination – passive and repetitive reflection about the negative situation (e.g., “why does negative events always happen to me?”)
At the first milestone, a month after the war erupted, approximately 600 parents participated in the study. At the second milestone, approximately 6 months later (between May and July 2024), 263 of the original respondents participated (average age 38, 213 women, 67 parents reported that their partner has served in the army during the war). Doctoral student Mor Keleynikov (University of Haifa) led the study, together with Dr. Reuma Gadassi Polack (Tel Aviv-Jaffa Academic College), Prof. Noga Cohen (University of Haifa), Dr. Joy Benatov (University of Haifa), and Dr. Dana Lassri (Hebrew University of Jerusalem). Keleynikov undertook the study as part of her doctoral thesis, with the help of funding from the University of Haifa and a research grant from the Mifrasim Institute for Research and Teaching in Psychotherapy, awarded to Dr. Gadassi Polack.
The findings showed a slight (but statistically significant) fall in the indexes for mental distress – depression, anxiety, stress, and symptoms of PTSD. Participants who used adaptive emotion regulation strategies, such as reinterpreting negative situations and feelings at the beginning of the war experienced a more significant improvement in their mental condition, and faced less distress, while those who engaged in rumination at the beginning of the war showed a smaller improvement.
The parents’ reports also showed that no improvement occurred during the war in terms of the high level of parental burnout. In other words, the level of parental burnout remains high and has not fallen since the war began. At the beginning of the war, 7% of parents reported parental burnout, while at the second milestone 8% of parents did so; the global average is 3% (thus the identified level is 2.67 times this average).
Participants who made more use of reappraisal (looking at the events and at their emotions from a perspective that reduced negative feelings) and who suppressed their expression of negative emotions experienced a fall in parental burnout over time. This finding concerning reevaluation is consistent with the professional literature in the field. However, the finding regarding the expression of emotions is surprising. Such suppression usually constitutes a coping mechanism that impairs mental health, but the findings of the current study show that this strategy can reduce burnout among parents in situations of significant stress. This finding can be explained by the complex nature of the parent-child relationship, including the desire of parents to refrain from exposing their children to their own negative emotions.
The study also examined the partners of parents drafted for reserve duty and the way they responded to this situation. The level of parental burnout among the partners of reserve soldiers was significantly higher than that among the general population of parents at both milestones. Among parents whose partner was drafted for reserve duty, 11% reported parental burnout (3.67 times the global average) at both milestones. The findings also showed significant gaps for the other indexes: parents whose partner was drafted for reserve duty showed higher levels of distress than the other parents. For example, the proportion of respondents whose partners were not drafted for reserve duty suffering from PTSD symptoms was 35% in November, falling to 19% in May–July. By contrast, the proportion of those displaying PTSD symptoms among respondents whose partners were drafted for reserve duty was 44% in November, falling to 33% in May–July.
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Preceding provided by the University of Haifa