Paper Title
Mediating Effect Of Coping Strategies On The Relationship Between Parenting Stress And Parenting Efficacy In Vietnamese-Korean Mothers

Abstract
Purpose: International marriage women immigrants have been increasingin Korea. Most of them delivered their first baby within one year, which disturbed them in adapting to host country, Korea and childrearing. Especially, Vietnamese-Korean mothers were reported to experience a lot of parenting stress due to problems of communication, inaccessibilityof informationabout parenting, differences between the two countries in care culture, lack of support system and so on. Because of high level of parenting stress, their parenting efficacy was reported to be lower than that of Korean mother. Coping strategies related with parenting stress and parenting efficacy as well. Therefore it may intermediate the relationship between parenting stress and parenting efficacy. Precedent studies have been conducted on mixed samples from different countries of origin. Considering that parenting is a cultural phenomenon, mixed samples from the country of origin have limitations to understand the parenting of Vietnamese-Korean mothers. This study intended to explore mediating effect of coping strategies on the relationship between parenting stress and parenting efficacy in Vietnamese-Korean mothers. Method - Data were collected from a convenience sampling. Vietnamese-Korean immigrant woman was eligible if (1) she had been married to Korean man, (2) she had raised children under the age of six, and (3) she could read and write Korean or Vietnamese. Investigator contacted the mothers at seven institutions which provided health services or Korea adjustment programs for immigrant women from July to August2016.A total of 142 questionnaires were completed through self-report response. Three scales were used to measure study variables: Parenting Stress Index (Abidin&Brunner, 1995);Coping Strategies (Folkman & Lazarus, 1988); Parenting Sense of Competence (Giabud-Wallston&Wandersman, 1978). Regression analysis (Baron & Kenny, 1986) was used to test the mediating effect. Result - Participants perceived a little higher parenting stress (2.69±0.69) and a little lower parenting efficacy (3.04±0.61) comparing with domestic Korean mothers. Vietnamese mother used a little more problem-focused coping strategy than emotion-focused one. Parenting stress (r=-.555) was significantly and negatively correlated to parenting efficacy at the 0.01 level. Problem-focused coping strategy (r=.505) and emotion-focused coping strategy (r=.533) were also associated with parenting efficacy at the 0.01 level. Two type of coping strategies were significantly and positively correlated with each other (r=.835).The result of running the 3 steps of regression test was as follows: (1st step) Parenting stress significantly affected on parenting efficacy at the 0.001 level. (2nd step) Parenting stress significantly influenced on problem (emotion) focused coping strategy at the 0.001 level.(3rd step) The effect of parenting stress on parenting efficacy controlling for problem (emotion) focused coping strategy was still significant and the effect size of parenting stress was less than 1ststep. The results showed that both of coping strategies may mediate the relationship between parenting stress and parenting efficacy in Vietnamese-Korean mothers. Conclusion - In this study, two type of coping strategies turned out to mediate the relationship between parenting stress and parenting efficacy. Major conclusions are as follows:1) Emotion-focused coping strategy was revealed to be helpful psychological capital which alleviated parenting stress and strengthened parenting efficacy as well as problem-focused coping strategy. It needs to explore various kind of coping strategies which Vietnamese immigrant mothers with low parenting stress and high parenting efficacy used to applicate. Development of educational program for training Vietnamese immigrant women to practice helpful coping strategies is also needed.2) There were significant positive relationship between problem and emotion focused coping strategy. The more mothers use problem-focused coping strategy the more they applicate emotion-focused coping strategy. We should know which coping strategy Vietnamese-Korean mothers choose to use in a certain parenting stage or situation. The effectiveness of each coping strategy in a specific condition should be revealed. Keywords - Coping, Parenting Stress, Parenting Efficacy, Vietnamese-Korean.