1. INTRODUCTION:

As the number of double-income couples increases, the percentage of people leaving their children into the care of childcare centers, foster mothers, or relatives also increases accordingly. However, the main caregivers responsible for general child-rearing duties are still mothers in many households, and they feel mental pressure for childcare more than any others. While mothers feel pleasant and rewarded from child-rearing, they also suffer from restrictions to private life, physical fatigue, financial burden, self development, and less opportunities of leisure activity¹.

Lazarus & Folkman² pointed out that stress is accumulated not by certain major events but by repeated daily routines, emphasizing the relation between daily life patterns and child-rearing stress. Since mothers play a central role in a home setting generally, excessive child-rearing stress on the mother is likely to affect the entire family significantly. Parenting stress is a stress that occurs when parents play a role, which weakens parental interest in parenting and leads to dysfunctional parenting behavior. Just as there is a unique culture in each family, there are many differences in care depending on caregiver, parenting environment, social needs and change. Unlike the past, the parenting environment has improved and there is a lot of information related to parenting, but there is a lot of difficulty in applying the parenting laws and theories to the actual parenting situation. It is necessary, therefore, to pay keen attention to the child-rearing stress among mothers of infants. Child-rearing stress is a type of stress that parents experience in their child rearing. Such stress weakens parents' interest in rearing and causes dysfunctional behaviors of rearing. Just as each family has its unique style and culture, there may be much difference in rearing depending on the rearer, rearing environment, social demand and change, etc. Rearing environments are better than before, and a wealth of information on rearing is available now. However, the process of applying rearing methods and theories practically to actual rearing situations involves a lot of challenges. Mothers who hardly adapt themselves to rearing feel guilty about not being able to play their roles as a parent with child-rearing stress increasing among them. Such guilty conscience and child-rearing stress are likely to result in inappropriate rearing attitudes. Child-rearing stress affects various aspects of the rearers' daily routine of rearing and personal life. Abidin³ views child-rearing stress as a major variable based on which mothers' inappropriate rearing behaviors can be predicted.' Parenting efficacy' means a parental conviction that he or she is able to handle duties related to child-rearing. Parents of high parenting efficacy would induce physical, emotional, and psychological developments of their children ultimately through positive interactions between them as well as appropriate child-rearing behaviors. In contrast, parents of no parenting efficacy would practice inappropriate child-rearing behaviors and interfere with positive developments of infants. According to D'Zurila and Goldfried⁴, attitudes toward problems are divided to positive and negative ones even in the identical situation, and the way of cognitive thinking leads to different behaviors. Such difference in the recognition of 'how to see things in the same circumstance; leads to a different ‘problem orientation’: positive or negative attitudes toward a problem. In other words, the problem orientation of a major child caregiver in practical matters of child rearing decides childcare behaviors. According to D'Zurila & Nezu⁵, as many problems in daily life are complicated, problem-solving abilities are useful in combining solutions or developing relevant plans. It also is reported that behavioral rehearsal and role-playing for practicing solutions to problems can be helpful for finding out and evaluating various social and emotional effects of solutions that participants apply in their relationship problems. Such problem-solving skills that have been trained and learned can not only be applied to a wide range of problematic situations with therapeutic effects on preventing or reducing stress-related symptoms.

As the child-rearing stress increases, the parenting efficacy decreases due to negative attitudes toward child rearing. In turn, the low parenting efficacy will induce guilt and depression in the caregiver, causing a consistent feeling of incapability or negativeness in coping with problems⁶.

Ways for mothers, who are main rearers, to cope with their child-rearing stress and maintain proper rearing attitudes are limited to consulting with their parents or parents-in-law, asking husbands to help rearing actively, and asking advice from neighboring child-rearing women in the same age bracket⁷. Education sessions that childcare centers and kindergartens conduct for parents too are mostly one-time events rather than continued programs. There is an urgent need, therefore, to organize a group of people in similar situations, give them opportunities to share feedbacks on their rearing attitudes in daily life, and help them come up with better ideas. Efforts need to be put forth into research and development of various programs to help addressing daily-life rearing problems more efficiently and to provide support for rearers depending on children's age and rearers' characteristics. The core of problem-solving theories is to develop a proper model. A problem-solving model should be appropriate for exploring various problem-solving alternatives, practicing problem-solving skills in such ways as behavioral rehearsal and role-playing, and applying these skills to the rearing field specifically and practically.

The present study proposes ways to improve problem-solving skills among mothers of infants and help them cope with various problems in daily life efficiently so that child-rearing stress decreases while parenting efficacy is improved. To this end, the proposed group counseling program for problem-solving was designed to help the group learn and practice problem-solving skills in a child-rearing setting. In addition, the effect of learned problem-solving skills on the child-rearing stress and parenting efficacy among mothers, who are major caregivers, is examined.

To achieve the above-mentioned goals, hypotheses have been established as below:

Hypothesis 1

The group counseling program for problem-solving will reduce the child-rearing stress among mothers of infants.

Hypothesis 2

The group counseling program for problem-solving will improve the parenting efficacy among mothers of infants

2. RESEARCH METHOD:

2.1. Study Object:

For this study, data were collected from mothers leaving their infants in the care of childcare centers or kindergartens. Among 20 applications for a group counseling program for problem-solving, 10 were selected at random for the experiment group, and the other 10 for the control group. The group counseling program for problem-solving proposed in this study was then conducted among the control group about 1 month after they were asked for understanding in terms of counseling ethics.

2.2. Study Design:

The present study aims to verify the effect of a group counseling program for problem-solving on the child-rearing stress and parenting efficacy among mothers of infants. To this end, an experiment was designed for ex-ante and ex-post comparison between the experiment group and control group.

2.3. Study Tool:

2. 3. 1. Child-rearing Stress Index:

To measure the child-rearing stress among mothers of infants, this study adopts the child-rearing stress index which is a simplified, revised version of the PSI (Parenting Stress Index) of Abidin¹. This simplified index was developed in 1990 and consists of 36 questions with 12 under each sub-index². Between the PSI/LF (long form) and PSI/SF (short form), the present study adopts the PSI/SF.

2. 3. 1. Parenting Efficacy:

To measure the parenting efficacy among mothers of infants, this study adopts the maternal parenting efficacy index which was developed by Choi Hyeong-seong and Jeong Ock-boon⁸ to measure parenting efficacy among mothers in Korea.

2. 4. The Group Counseling Program for Program-solving:

The short-term counseling program for problem-solving, developed by Park Sung-joo⁹, consists of 5 steps corresponding to the problem-solving process of D'Zurilla and Goldfried⁴: the step of problem orientation; step of problem definition and formation; step of alternative creation; step of decision-making; and implementation and evaluation. D'Zurilla & Nezu⁵ defines each step as a procedure to learn and master problem-solving skills. Nezu¹⁰ suggested to make a small group of 8 to 10 individuals.

2. 5. Data-collecting Method:

The group counseling program for problem-solving was conducted for its 8 sessions in total, twice a week, one and a half hours per session, for the 10 in the experiment group. No group counseling program for problem-solving was conducted for the control group. A preliminary test was conducted for both the experiment group and control group, and then a post-test was conducted on the experiment group after the group counseling program for problem-solving. For the control group, the post-test was conducted after the experiment group completed the test, and thereafter, the same group counseling program for problem-solving with the experiment group was conducted.

2. 6. Data Processing & Analysis Methods:

To analyze test results, the independent t-test and non-parametric statistical analysis (Wicoxon Matched-Pairs Signed-Ranks Test) were conducted by means of SPSS 19.0 program.

3. STUDY RESULTS:

3.1. The effect of the group counseling program for problem-solving on reduction of the child-rearing stress:

The effect of the group counseling program for problem-solving on reduction of the child-rearing stress among study objects is presented in <Table 1>.

Table 1 Verification of the difference in child-rearing stress before and after the program

Classification		N	Pre-test		Post-test		t
Classification		N	M	SD	M	SD	t
Child-rearing stress	Control group	10	2.71	.232	2.75	.262	-.919
Child-rearing stress	Experiment group	10	2.96	.320	1.94	.291	11.21^**

^***p<.001, ^** p<.01, ^*p<.05

The result of the pre-test and post-test comparison of child-rearing stress showed statistically significant difference: In the experiment group for which the group counseling program for problem-solving (pretest average: 2.96; post-test average 1.94; p=.005) was conducted, the child-rearing stress decreased significantly. In contrast, little difference was shown in the control group (pre-test average: 2.71; post-test average: 2.75; p=.382). Hence, Hypothesis 1 that the group counseling program for problem-solving would reduce child-rearing stress was accepted.

3. 2. Verification of the Positive Effect of the Group Counseling Program for Problem-solving on parenting efficacy:

The effect of the group counseling program for problem-solving on the parenting efficacy of study objects is presented in <Table 2>.

Table 2 Verification of parenting efficacy difference before and after the program

Classification		N	Pre-test		Post-test		t
Classification		N	M	SD	M	SD	t
Parenting efficacy	Control group	10	3.31	.423	3.28	.347	.538
Parenting efficacy	Experiment group	10	3.39	.449	4.16	.222	9.40^**

^***p<.001, ^** p<.01, ^*p<.05

According to the ex ante and ex post test comparison of parenting efficacy showed statistically significant difference. In the experiment group for which the group counseling program for problem-solving was conducted (pre-test average: 3.39; post-test average: 4.16; p=.005), the difference in parenting efficacy was statistically significant as it was substantially improved. In contrast, the control group (pre-test average: 3.31; post-test average: 3.28; p=.445) showed little difference. Hence, Hypothesis 2 that the group counseling program for problem-solving would improve parenting efficacy was accepted.

4. DISCUSSION:

This study aims to examine the effect of improving problem-solving skills on the child-rearing stress and parenting efficacy among infant-nursing mothers. To this end, the group counseling program for problem-solving that is based on the problem-solving theory of D'Zurilla and Nezuis applied, and its effect is analyzed.

This study has adopted mothers with infant(s) who attend daycare centers and kindergartens located in some regions of Daegu Metropolitan City and in Gumi-si and Gimcheon-si, Gyeongbuk as its subjects.

Among 20 applications to participate in a problem-solving collective counseling program have been split into the control group of 10 persons and the experiment group of 10 persons, respectively in a random allocation manner, followed by conducting a preliminary test. Those in the experiment group have been instructed to engage in two sessions of a problem-solving collective counseling program every week with the duration of 90 minutes per session until they complete eight sessions in total while those in the control group have engaged in a posttest without participating in the program. The independent t-test and the non-parametric statistical analysis (Wicoxon Matched-Pairs Signed-Ranks Test) have been conducted using SPSS 19.0 program for analysis of test results.

The study subject and findings may be summarized as follows:

First, it turned out that the group counseling program for problem-solving was effective in reducing the child-rearing stress among mothers of infants. This result corresponds to the study finding of Song Gyeong-seon that family-supporting programs by means of problem-solving strategies would reduce the child-rearing stress among parents of children with developmental delay. The present study focuses consistently on the issue of child-rearing stress that main child caregivers would commonly experience in daily life, and it helps exercising and practicing appropriate problem-solving methods. Such problem-solving exercises have played an important role in helping mothers who were major caregivers to select reasonable and effective alternatives for problem-solving in child-rearing settings rather than existing impulsive, careless, or evasive methods. Nezu reported that problem-solving skills would function as a moderating variable alleviating negative stress in life. As such, problem-solving skills result in satisfactory, positive results to major child caregivers and play an important role in reducing child-rearing stress.

Second, it turned out that the group counseling program for problem-solving was effective in improving the parenting efficacy among mothers of infants. Accordingly, Hypothesis 2 that the group counseling program for problem-solving would improve the parenting efficacy among mothers of infants parenting efficacy was accepted. Ahn Sun-jadefined a sense of competence and self confidence in recognition of one's capability and efficient performance. In this regard, a group counseling program for problem-solving enhances major caregivers' self-expectation and sense of competence, improving their parenting efficacy effectively. This study suggests a group activity where participants can learn practical skills by means of rearing efficacy improving methods such as brainstorming, rehearsal, and roleplaying, and these skills can be applied to specific rearing situations. This study is of significance in that it explores solutions to problems that rearers experience, develops plans to practice selected solutions, and suggests a process of removing unexpected variables as fully as possible. It enhances the achievement of problem-solving and affects rearing commitment positively. It is evident that above-mentioned activities help participant group members to develop active attitudes and self-confidence in problem-solving as well as to enhance their rearing efficacy. Finally, The present study's limiations and suggestions for the future study are as below:

First, existing researches based on the problem-solving theory focused on those with a kind of disability such as epileptics, schizophreniacs, parents of disabled children, adults with intellectual disability, alcoholics, etc. In contrast, the present study is significant in that it verifies the effectiveness of problem-solving programs applied to ordinary adult mothers of infants. It is expected that this study will induce various researches and attempts to apply problem-solving programs for ordinary people.

In addition, the current study applies brainstorming, role plays, exercises, etc. in the actual group counseling program to help practicing problem-solving skills.

Second, this study does not include verification of the effect continuance after the group counseling program for problem-solving ends. While mothers of infants have keen interests and participating desire in group counseling, the current related programs at child-rearing and educational institutions are merely of obligatory semiyearly parent educations and one-time lectures or education sessions, which have limitations in terms of effect continuance. The future study, therefore, needs to develop programs of lasting effects.

Third, the object group consisted of mothers who were committed to child-rearing with no job. As double-income couples are increasing, childcare supporting programs for fathers are insufficient even though their areas of participating in child-rearing are broadened. Besides, the desire of participating in such programs is increasing among working mothers, but most of them are unable to join in group counseling due to time constraints. Therefore, it is necessary to develop and distribute group counseling programs in reflection of various characteristics and conditions.

5. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS:

This work was supported by the 2016 Gimcheon University Research Grant.

6. REFERENCE:

1. Kim, Hyeon-mi (2006). The Relation between Maternal Child-rearing Behaviors and 4.

2. Child-rearing Stress and Infants' Social Competence, Master's Thesis, Seoul Women's University.

3. Lazarus, R. S., & Folkman, S.(1991).Stress, appraisal and coping.

4. Abidin, R. R.(1986). Parening stress index. Charlot-tesville, VA : Pediatric Psychology Press. D'Zurilla, T. J., Goldfried, M. R.(1971). Problem solving and behavior modification. Journal of Abnormal Psyshology, 78, 107-126.

5. D'Zurilla, T. J., & Nezu, A. M. (2007). Problem-Solving Therapy: A Positive Apperoach to Clinical Intervention. New York: Springer Publishing Co.

6. Song, Koung Sun (2000). Effects of the Family Support Program Using Problem-Solving Strategy on the Parenting Stress and Family Empowerment of Parents with Children of Developmental Delay, Master’s Thesis, Ewha Womans University.

7. An, Sun Ja (1997). The Effects of Self-Growth Program on the Elementary School Children’s Self-Esteem and Self-Efficacy, Master’s Thesis, Korea National University of Education.

8. Choe, Hyung Sung, Chung, Ock Boon (2001).The Development of an lnventory for Measuring the Parenting Self-Effcacy of Korean Mothers, Korean Journal of Child Studies, Journal of the Korean Child Neurology Society Vol.22 No.3.

9. Park, Sung-joo (2008). Development of a Problem Solving Brief Counseling Program for Couples of Divorce and the Verification of its Effectiveness, Doctoral Thesis, Keimyung University.

10. Nezu, A. M. (1986). Cognitive appraisal of problem-solvig effectiveness: Relation to depression and depressive symptoms. Journal of Clinical Psychology, 42, 42-48.

Received on 10.08.2018 Modified on 22.10.2018

Research J. Pharm. and Tech. 2019; 12(4):1880-1884.

DOI: 10.5958/0974-360X.2019.00317.2