The moderating role of co-parenting between marriage quality and maternal anxiety

Objective To identify the influencing factors of maternal anxiety, and explore the moderating role of co-parenting in the effect of marriage quality on maternal anxiety. Methods Totally 522 mothers with children aged 0-12 were enrolled in the surveys and completed the Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD-7), Marital Adjustment Test and Co-parenting Relationship Scale.The chi-square test, the spearman correlation analysis and non-parametric percentile Bootstrap method were processed by SPSS 22.0. Results ①The detection rate of anxiety in the mothers was 48.7%, and the rate for mild, moderate, and severe anxiety was 37.4%, 8.4%, 2.9%, respectively.② The chi-square test showed that the family factors, such as mother's age, level of workload, family economic conditions, husband's level of workload, the child's age and health condition, as well as the conflicts between parents and grandparents and the grandparents’ willingness of involving in raising children, significantly affected mother’s anxiety(χ2=4.292-23.170, P<0.05). ②The maternal anxiety was negatively correlated with marital quality (r=-0.419, P<0.01). ③ Both positive co-parenting (PCP) and negative co-parenting(NCP) played moderating roles in the relationship between marriage quality and maternal anxiety(BPCP=0.013, P<0.01; BNCP=-0.010, P<0.05). Conclusion Marital quality is an important factor which affects maternal anxiety, and father’s performance in co-parenting plays a moderating role in it. Key words: Maternal anxiety; Marriage quality; Co-parenting; Moderation