Abstract

Family structure and the quality of family relationships are important determinants of psychological wellbeing and quality of life of children and parents. Research in the field of psychological wellbeing in family context has been mainly focusing on children in relation to parents. As regards single parent families, it is known that they face a number of challenges of single parenting, including material, social, psychological and other aspects. Previous research in the field of mental health of parents from single parent families is quite scarce. Our paper presents a study conducted with mothers from single and two-parent families with the aim to examine the differences between the two categories according to their economic status, level of parental stress, social support and psychological wellbeing as well as some determinants of psychological wellbeing, depending on parental status of the family. The results show that mothers from single parent families did not differ in overall psychological wellbeing compared to mothers from two-parent families, but indicated a tendency to a higher level of depression. Mothers from single parent families perceived a lesser degree of social support and had a less affluent material position. Various aspects of material position and parental stress were shown to be significant predictors of psychological wellbeing, while social support proved to be a significant predictor of psychological wellbeing in mothers in two-parent families.