Screening the first signs of exhaustion to prevent parental burnout: The Brief Parental Burnout Scale

Parenting can sometimes lead to parent’s exhaustion. In order to diagnose parental burnout, Roskam, Brianda and Mikolajczak (2018) created the Parental Burnout Assessment (PBA), a 23-item questionnaire. Then, Aunola, Sorkkila and Tolvanen (2018) created a shorter version of the PBA: The Brief Parental Burnout Scale (BPBs), retaining only the PBA’s five most representative items. The purpose of this brief scale (BPBs) is to provide a prevention tool as it would allow caretakers to sense when parents are at risk for parental burnout and should receive help. The present study sought to validate the French-version of this short-scale (BPBs) and appraise whether it can predict parental burnout and violent/neglectful behavior towards child(ren). We presented the PBA and the BPBs to a sample of French-speaking parents (N = 201). Then, we computed correlations analyses between both assessments, construct validity, and predictive validity for a scale of parental neglect/violence towards their child(ren). Finally, we found that the developed instrument had good validity and was well correlated to the diagnostic scale (PBA). The ANOVA analysis revealed invariance across the genre. Besides, the results of this study showed that the BPBs could predict, to some degree, parental violence and neglect behaviors towards child(ren).