A Systems Approach to Understanding How Poverty and Parental Stress Contribute to Family Trauma

Poverty, parental pressure and family trauma are not isolated issues but are a combination of processes that determine the way families operate. A mixed-method sequence explanatory research design was used in this study in the investigation of the interactions of these dynamics in the ecological structures of families where 342 households were selected both with urban and rural setting with various economic statuses. During the quantitative stage, standardized measures like the parental Stress Index, economic Hardship Scale, and Family Trauma Assessment were used, and the structural equation modeling was applied in order to analyze the direct and indirect relationships. The qualitative stage entailed semi-structured interviews of 45 purposely chosen families, which were examined through a system based thematic framework. Findings indicated three interdependent loop interactions that displayed nonlinear and reciprocal interactions: poverty increased parental stress (= 0.58, p ¡ = 0.001), the presence of stress increased family trauma (= 0.47, p ¡ = 0.001), and family trauma further exposed economic insecurity by creating job disruptions and cost of living. The analysis of mediation showed that the relationship between trauma and poverty was explained by parental stress to approximately 43 percent. The responses of the interviews shed light on experiences of families living with the pressures that were already there, the patterns of stressed-out situations, and the sense-making processes of struggling. Significantly, family social support and resilience were buffers and minimized the intensity of adverse outcomes. The study proposed an advanced systems model by combining the two data strands in such a way that the challenges occur as interacting and self-reinforcing mechanisms on the family environment. The results highlight the significance of pervasive interventions and family-based policies that would simultaneously include addressing the issues of economic hardship and reinforcing coping resources to disrupt distress cycles.