Bujnowska, Anna M., Rodríguez, Celestino, García, Trinidad, Areces, Débora, and Marsh, Nigel V. (2025) Sociodemographic factors and their predictive role in parents' future anxiety. Psicologia: Reflexao e Critica, 38. 5.

Preview

PDF (Published Version) - Published Version Available under License Creative Commons Attribution. Download (1MB) | Preview

Abstract

Background: High levels of future anxiety in parents may not only affect their cognitive processes, and attitudes but also impact their parenting behaviour and relations with the children.

Objective. In the present study, we aimed to identify the differences in the intensity of parents’ future anxiety across demographic variables and to assess demographic predictors of FA.

Methods. A group of 103 parents from Eastern Poland (71% mothers and 29% fathers) completed the Future Anxiety Scale. Their children were aged 3—16 years. The 10 aspects of Future Anxiety were compared across the five parent demographic variables of gender, age, level of education, place of living (rural vs. urban), and number of children.

Results. The results show that parents’ education level, gender, and the number of children in the family were predictors of FA. Parents’ age and place of living did not significantly predict FA. Mothers reported significantly higher levels of anxiety than fathers, for both general future anxiety and helplessness. Parents who had only one child reported higher levels of helplessness. However, it was the parents’ level of education that showed the greatest number of significant differences. Parents with only secondary education reported higher average scores on seven (70%) of the 10 aspects of future anxiety. The differences were significant for general future anxiety, health and wellbeing, restricted freedom, the meaning of life, pessimism, helplessness, and isolation.

Conclusion. These findings indicated the possible groups of parents who may need support and identified potential areas of intervention.

Item ID:	84904
Item Type:	Article (Research - C1)
ISSN:	1678-7153
Keywords:	Parents, Future anxiety, Families, Parental educational level, Future anxiety scale
Copyright Information:	© The Author(s) 2025. Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
Date Deposited:	20 Mar 2025 00:19
FoR Codes:	52 PSYCHOLOGY > 5203 Clinical and health psychology > 520302 Clinical psychology @ 100%
SEO Codes:	20 HEALTH > 2004 Public health (excl. specific population health) > 200409 Mental health @ 100%
Downloads:	Total: 3 Last 12 Months: 3
	More Statistics