This systematic review followed the recommendations proposed by the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) (Page et al., 2021). Searches were carried out in seven databases: Scopus, Web of Science, PsycInfo, VHL Portal, MEDLINE/CINAHL, EMBASE, and Cochrane Library, considering the descriptors in English: [migra* AND parental stress], [immigra* AND parental stress], and [refug* AND parental stress]. The research was limited to only articles published in the last ten years (2012-2021) in English, Spanish, and Portuguese.

The articles included in this review met the following criteria: 1) empirical quantitative study; 2) described the context of the international migration process of the participants; and 3) assessed the Parental Stress construct. In Selection stage, the articles were categorized through Rayyan software. After excluding duplicate documents, the first two researchers of this systematic review read the titles and abstracts and evaluated the articles based on the inclusion criteria. At this stage, the level of agreement between researches was calculated using the Kappa coefficient (k = 0.55), reaching a moderate level (Pérez et al., 2020). The disagreements were solved by consensus between two researches (Leclerc et al., 2014). In the Eligibility stage, the articles were fully read and included in the review considering the same criteria previously described. Furthermore, in this stage, articles that (1) carried out cluster analyzes mixing people in international migration processes with other categories of participants; (2) articles that described intervention protocols without reporting PS measures; or (3) unavailable articles, were excluded from the sample.

Initially, 2193 documents were found and after the steps described, 21 articles were included for analysis. The details of this process, considering the stages of Identification, Selection, Eligibility, and Inclusion are available in Figure 1.

After the Inclusion, the first two authors of this systematic review evaluated each article independently. Firstly, the quality of the articles was evaluated based on the criteria by Berra et al. (2008), adapted for this study. Secondly, the articles were analyzed based on their objectives, methodological aspects and their main results regarding PS associated with people in international migration processes.

Figure 1.

Table 1 shows the Critical Appraisal of the 21 studies included in this systematic review, based on criteria adapted from Berra et al. (2008). Considering the 12 evaluation criteria for the quality of studies, which scores ranged from 6 to 12, most studies (n = 12) were classified as High quality (10-12 score). Eight were considered Moderate quality (7-9 score), one was Low (4-6 score), and no studies were classified as Very low (1-3 score). We observed that only four articles carried out a sample calculation for the number of participants, while only eight studies reported the quantity of previously selected participants and those who effectively composed the final sample. The gaps recurrently found in the articles lie in the lack of description of the quantities of potential and effective participants, as well as absence of statistical calculation for the composition of the sample.

Table 1. Note

Criteria: (+) present; (-) absent; (/) not applicable. 1. Introduction adequately contextualizes the study problem. 2. Research objectives or questions were clear and specified in the text. 3. The inclusion/exclusion criteria of the participants were indicated. 4. Participants selection procedures were specified. 5. The research design is specified in the text. 6. The number of previously selected participants and those who actually participated in the study were informed. 7. The studied variables were clearly defined. 8. Validated instruments were used for all the main variables studied. 9. Calculation was made for sample size. 10. The statistical analyzes used were specified. 11. Results are clearly described accordingly to the objectives of the study. 12. Discussion articulates findings with adequate available literature. Quality: Very low (1-3); Low (4-6); Moderate (7-9); High (10-12).

Table 2 presents the characterization of the studies, accordingly to their (1) publication year and objectives; (2) methodological characteristics (study design, participants and instruments); and (3) main results regarding to PS of people in international migration processes.

Table 2.

Note. *

Only instruments used to assess Parental Stress and their main outcomes were presented.

The majority of the articles (n = 14) were published from 2018 onwards, with a decrease of publications in 2021, probably due to the COVID-19 pandemics (McAuliffe & Triandafyllidou, 2021). Regarding the aims of the studies, they investigated multiple psychosocial variables associated with the PS construct. Among them, there was a predominance of articles that involved measures of social support (Hong et al., 2021; Kim, 2018; Lee & Jeon, 2021; Londhe, 2015), acculturation orientations (Kim, 2018; Lee & Jeon, 2021; Londhe, 2015; Wang et al., 2021), parent-child relationship (Garcia et al., 2017; Lee & Jeon, 2021; Liu et al., 2020; Yoo, 2019), and mental health of caregivers (Eruyar et al., 2018; Tsao et al., 2015; Xu et al., 2018).

Some studies (n = 5) aimed to describe practices and results of interventions designed to reduce PS rates. The following interventions programs were applied: Caregiver Support Intervention (Miller et al., 2020), Mother-Child Education Program (Ponguta et al., 2020), and Child Parent Relationship Therapy - CPRT (Lim & Ogawa, 2014), in addition to a comparative study between CPRT and Systematic Training for Effective Parenting (Ceballos et al., 2019), and another unnamed intervention (Lakkis et al., 2020). Lastly, we highlight the validation study of the scale Immigrant Parental Stress Inventory - IPSI (Yoo, 2019), as well as another study that considered the impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic on PE focused on meeting children’s educational needs (Hong et al., 2021).

Most of the studies (n = 12) were referred as Cross-sectional (Eo & Kim, 2018; Eruyar et al., 2018; Fernández-Castillo et al., 2012; Garcia et al., 2017; Hong et al., 2021; Kim, 2018; Lee & Jeon, 2021; Liu et al., 2020; Londhe, 2015; Wang et al., 2021; Yoo, 2019; Yoo & Vonk, 2012), followed by Cohort (Lakkis et al., 2020; Parkes et al., 2015; Tsao et al., 2015; Xu et al., 2018), Randomized Controlled Trails (Ceballos et al., 2019; Miller et al., 2020; Ponguta et al., 2020), Longitudinal (Mitchell et al., 2019), and Case Study (Lim & Ogawa, 2014). Among the study participants, there was a predominance of articles (n = 10) that assessed mothers and fathers jointly (Fernández-Castillo et al., 2012; Hong et al., 2021; Lakkis et al., 2020; Liu et al., 2020; Londhe, 2015; Miller et al., 2020; Mitchell et al., 2019; Wang et al., 2021; Yoo, 2019; Yoo & Vonk, 2012), and six others which investigated only mothers (Eo & Kim, 2018; Garcia et al., 2017; Lee & Jeon, 2021; Parkes et al., 2015; Tsao et al., 2015; Xu et al., 2018). Furthermore, one included only migrant mothers married with men from another country (Kim, 2018), another investigated mother-child and father-child dyads (Eruyar et al., 2018), two studies assessed only mother-child dyads (Ceballos et al., 2019; Ponguta et al., 2020), and a case study with father-child dyad (Lim & Ogawa, 2014).

The migrants participating in the majority of the articles (n = 18) were from South-Global countries (Ceballos et al., 2019; Eo & Kim, 2018; Eruyar et al., 2018; Fernández-Castillo et al., 2012; Hong et al., 2021; Kim, 2018; Lakkis et al., 2020; Lee & Jeon, 2021; Lim & Ogawa, 2014; Liu et al., 2020; Londhe, 2015; Miller et al., 2020; Mitchell et al., 2019; Ponguta et al., 2020; Taso et al., 2015; Wang et al., 2021; Yoo, 2019; Yoo & Vonk, 2012) (Korea, North Korean, Syria, China, Palestine, Lebanon, Latin America, Iran, Philippines, Vietnam, Turkey, Taiwan, Sudan, and India). There was an article that assessed Europeans participants (Parkes et al., 2015), while others two did not mention the countries of origin of the migrants (Garcia et al., 2017; Xu et al., 2018). Regarding the host countries, most of articles (n = 13) involved migrations to North-Global, such as North America (Ceballos et al., 2019; Garcia et al., 2017; Hong et al., 2021; Lim & Ogawa, 2014; Liu et al., 2020; Londhe, 2015; Mitchell et al., 2019; Wang et al., 2021; Xu et al., 2018; Yoo, 2019; Yoo & Vonk, 2012) (United States of America and Canada) or European countries (Fernández-Castillo et al., 2012; Parkes et al., 2015) (Scotland and Spain), followed by migrations to the South-Global countries (Eo & Kim, 2018; Eruyar et al., 2018; Kim, 2018; Lakkis et al., 2020; Lee & Jeon, 2021; Miller et al., 2020; Ponguta et al., 2020; Tsao et al., 2015) (South Korea, Lebanon, Jordan, Turkey, and Taiwan).

The most used instrument to assess the PS construct was the Parenting Stress Index (PSI) (n = 13), developed by Abidin (1995). This instrument was most used in its reduced format (Eo & Kim, 2018; Eruyar et al., 2018; Garcia et al., 2017; Kim, 2018; Lakkis et al., 2020; Lee & Jeon, 2021; Liu et al., 2020; Londhe, 2015; Ponguta et al., 2020; Wang et al., 2021) rather than in its complete form (Ceballos et al., 2019; Lim & Osawa, 2014; Xu et al., 2018). Three other instruments were used to measure PS: Parental Stress Scale (Hong et al., 2021; Mitchell et al., 2019; Parkes et al., 2015), Child Care Stress Checklist (Tsao et al., 2015), Parental Stressor Scale (Fernández-Castillo et al., 2012), and one study did not use a validated scale to measure PS (Miller et al., 2020). Finally, a study stands out for the development of a scale that aims to measure PS specifically in migrants (Yoo & Vonk, 2012), the IPSI scale, which was later used in another study included in this review (Yoo, 2019). Finally, a study stood out for the development of a scale that measures PS specifically in migrants (Yoo & Vonk, 2012), which presented good reliability and validity. The IPSI scale was later used in another study included in this review (Yoo, 2019).

Regarding the results of the reviewed studies, the main recurrent factor associated with PS was social support. There is a body of evidence that shows measures of social support are inversely correlated with PS (Hong et al., 2021; Kim, 2018; Liu et al., 2020; Parkes et al., 2015). A study (Hong et al., 2021) revealed that migrant fathers and mothers with higher levels of social support were less likely to have high levels of PS. Social support also contributes to positive parenting practices, reducing conflicts between parents and children and promoting a cycle of decreasing PS in the family (Liu et al., 2020). One study highlighted the role of the extended family as a support for fathers and mothers in raising children (Parkes et al., 2015).

We also observed that PS was positively correlated with acculturation stress (Kim, 2018; Lee & Jeon, 2021), especially in cases which parents had different acculturation orientations from the host country (Wang et al., 2021). On the other hand, one study found no significant correlations among PS, social support, and acculturative orientations (Londhe, 2015). Regarding mental health indicators for mothers, the findings show that PS was positively correlated with greater depressive symptoms (Eruyar et al., 2018; Tsao et al., 2015; Xu et al. 2018).

Constructs involving parent-child relationship, such as parental efficacy, were associated with lower levels of PS (Lee & Jeon, 2021), while harsh discipline (Liu et al., 2020), and child maltreatment (Yoo, 2019) demonstrated inverse correlation, suggesting that higher levels of parental perceived stress have a negative impact on the quality of the relationship with their children. Some studies found associations between PS and sociodemographic data: parent lower educational or economic levels (Mitchell et al., 2019; Xu et al., 2018), younger age of children (Eruyar et al., 2018; Kim, 2018; Xu et al., 2018), mother age at child birth (Xu et al., 2018), female gender (Eruyar et al., 2018) and less time living in the host country (Mitchell et al., 2019) were predictors of higher levels of PS. However, among the comparative studies between natives and international migrants, we noticed that the PS outcomes are controversial. To the same extent that there are two studies that report higher levels of PS in migrants compared to natives (Parkes et al., 2015; Tsao et al., 2015), other three have indicated exactly the opposite, natives showing higher levels of PS (Eo & Kim, 2018; Fernández-Castillo et al., 2012; Garcia et al., 2017).

Among the psychological intervention studies, all of them demonstrated the programs significantly increased levels of psychosocial well-being while decreased PS rates (Ceballos et al., 2019; Lakkis et al., 2020; Lim & Osawa, 2014; Liu et al., 2020; Miller et al., 2020; Ponguta et al., 2020), whether within-group (Ceballos et al., 2019; Lim & Osawa, 2014; Liu et al., 2020; Miller et al., 2020) or between-group, in which the control group was composed of natives (Ponguta et al., 2020). There is also an improvement in child well-being reported by parents (Miller et al., 2020) and in the quality of dyadic relationships, possibly due to the reduction in harsh parenting (Ponguta et al., 2020). One study compared two different intervention protocols and both showed positive results in decreasing PS after the intervention (Ceballos et al., 2019). The case study involving a father-son of a Sudanese refugee family also demonstrated the effectiveness of the intervention in reducing PS and in the child’s externalizing behaviors (Lim & Osawa, 2014).

The interventions aimed to provide a space of comprehensive care for caregivers, given that the psychological well-being of parents is an important basis for positive parenting and for the children’s psychological well-being (Lakkis et al., 2020). They also promoted group practices and individual interviews that emphasized the acquisition of parenting skills and the strengthening of positive parenting (Ceballos et al., 2019; Lakkis et al., 2020; Miller et al., 2020; Ponguta et al., 2020). Furthermore, these interventions also increased parental warmth and responsiveness (Miller et al., 2020), as well as decreased harsh parenting (Miller et al., 2020; Ponguta et al., 2020) and child externalizing behavior (Lim & Osawa, 2014).

The results of this systematic literature show that more studies about the PS construct associated with people in international migration processes were published from 2018 onwards, reflecting a greater interest of the academic community in the subject. This might have happened mainly because of the exponential increase of international migration in recent decades (McAuliffe & Triandafyllidou, 2021) and their respective physical and psychosocial impacts on families with children (Arakelyan & Ager, 2020; Ünver et al., 2021). On the other hand, there was an expressive decrease in studies in 2021, something that was already expected due to the implications of the Covid-19 pandemic on society in general, but also because of journal publications, in which editors prioritized studies involving urgent and emerging demands raised by the current context of global health crisis (Rodriguez Forti et al., 2021).

Regarding the theoretical-methodological aspects of the reviewed studies, the criteria adapted for this review (Berra et al., 2008) considered that the quality of the articles were high. The absence of statistical calculation for the composition of the sample and the lack of description of participants were gaps recurrently observed in the articles. Although these methodological issues are fundamental for a better understanding of individual and collective characteristics (Manstead, 2018), and also for the representation of each sample group (Field, 2018), it is necessary to consider that the accessibility and maintenance of the migrant population in studies are challenges to be faced by researchers (Ziaian et al., 2018). These challenges vary from the language differences, from the communication and methodological resources limitation (Milfont & Klein, 2018; Ziaian et al., 2018), to the characteristics of migrants, such as the fluidity of their displacements to other territories due to their economic and social vulnerabilities (Prado & Araújo, 2019). These characteristics turns harder to carry out sample’s size calculation and/or longitudinal follow-up study designs, something that may explain the reasons why most of the studies reviewed are cross-sectional design.

The reviewed studies investigated mostly mothers-fathers jointly (Fernández-Castillo et al., 2012; Hong et al., 2021; Lakkis et al., 2020; Liu et al., 2020; Londhe, 2015; Miller et al., 2020; Mitchell et al., 2019; Wang et al., 2021; Yoo, 2019; Yoo & Vonk, 2012), or even dyads (Ceballos et al., 2019; Eruyar et al., 2018; Lim & Osawa, 2014; Ponguta et al., 2020). This demonstrates the interest of researchers in understanding PS associated with international migration from different perspectives inside the same family. However, some studies have investigated only mothers (Ceballos et al., 2019; Eo & Kim, 2018; Garcia et al., 2017; Kim, 2018; Lee & Jeon, 2021; Parkes et al., 2015; Ponguta et al., 2020; Tsao et al., 2015; Xu et al., 2018), something that may be reproducing specific gender roles, in which the centrality of child care is attributed exclusively to mothers (Valiquette-Tessier et al., 2019). It also may be associated with migrations involving only women and children, which are more common in war contexts. On the other hand, the characteristics of the sample can be also related to the migrant’s own family organization or even the logic applied in the conceptualization and conduct of research (Hwang, 2020). Thus, it is important that new studies consider the existence of different care arrangements rather than the Eurocentric hegemonic model, which essentially refers the children’s care as a female gender role (Blundell, 2017).

Regarding the results related to PS in these different population samples, we observed that regardless of the caregiver, whether solo mothers, mothers-fathers jointly or just the father, high levels of PS were present and related to the variables studied such as child abuse (Yoo, 2019), conflicts between parents and children (Lee & Jeon, 2021; Liu et al., 2020), and greater difficulties in meeting their children’s educational needs (Hong et al., 2021). Even though none of the articles compared PS between different caregivers, we convey with the literature that parenthood during migration can be highly stressful to fathers, mothers and/or other caregivers (Eltanamly et al., 2021; Murphy et al., 2017).

Most studies addressed the migrations from the South-Global to North-Global (Ceballos et al., 2019; Fernández-Castillo et al., 2012; Garcia et al., 2017; Hong et al., 2021; Lim & Osawa, 2014; Liu et al., 2020; Londhe, 2015; Mitchell et al., 2019; Parkes et al., 2015; Wang et al., 2021; Xu et al., 2018; Yoo, 2019; Yoo & Vonk, 2012), considering USA was the main host country. Historically, South-to-North migration flows are relatively common and on a larger scale (Leal & Harder, 2021), especially among North America, Latin America and the Caribbean (Azose & Raftery, 2019). The reasons for these displacements focus on the cultural affinities shared by these populations, either by their symbolic constructions arising from the colonial past and their better living conditions, or the structural economic differences in North-Global countries (Leal & Harder, 2021). Still, we highlight the lack of studies on South-South migrations, particularly of the population from Africa or Caribbean-Latin American countries, such as Haiti (Conte Gil & Pizzinato, 2022) and Venezuela (UNHCR, n.d.), which both countries have recently experienced a massive diaspora.

Among the comparative studies between natives and international migrants, we noticed that the PS outcomes are controversial: while some report higher levels of PS in migrants compared to natives (Parkes et al., 2015; Tsao et al., 2015), others have indicated the opposite, natives showing higher levels of PS (Eo & Kim, 2018; Fernández-Castillo et al., 2012; Garcia et al., 2017). This ambiguity corroborates the phenomenon called “the immigrant paradox” (Zhang et al., 2021), which describes that, in some level, migrants have better or similar outcomes in mental health variables than their native-born peers, even after considering the contextual disadvantages and vulnerabilities of international migrant families. The literature confirms this phenomenon (Zhang et al., 2021), but we point out that this comparation between PS in migrants and natives needs to be further investigated.

Higher quantity of the reviewed studies addressed PS through the classic PSI instrument in its reduced version (Eo & Kim, 2018; Eruyar et al., 2018; Garcia et al., 2017; Kim, 2018; Lakkis et al., 2020; Lee & Jeon, 2021; Liu et al., 2020; Londhe, 2015; Ponguta et al., 2020; Wang et al., 2021), while the IPSI (Yoo, 2019; Yoo & Vonk, 2012), which is focused on assessing the PS construct in caregivers in the migratory context, considers the specificities of the international migration phenomenon. We stand out the importance of developing and using specific instruments for international migrants, since this population can be constantly subordinate to several vulnerable and risky conditions, making their physical, economic, and psychosocial conditions quite unique (Prado & Araújo, 2019). Yet, it is known about that the processes of construction, validation, and adaptation of scales in different languages and cultural contexts are other challenges to be faced by researches (Ziaian et al., 2018).

Regarding the results, most studies indicate social support as a protective factor for migrant families, since this increases the family’s well-being during the adaptation challenges faced by them in the new life and country. For migrant families, the distance from grandparents proved to be a factor that worsens PS levels, since parents lose important affective, logistical and even economic support in the care of children. Thus, some dimensions of social support are fundamental, such as insertion in the community and in health and social assistance services, creation of support networks, maintenance and strengthening of social bonds, and opportunities of work and income (Hynie, 2018). In migrant populations, their support network is highly fragmented, especially in forced displacement contexts. Therefore, some investigations point out to the importance of offering support and conditions for rearranging family life in the different stages of the migration process (Hynie, 2018; Murphy et al., 2017). In cases of families with children of school or preschool age, a community support network is essential, since child care requires a group of people involved in promoting health and well-being of children (Eltanamly et al., 2021; Murphy et al., 2017). Therefore, raising and/or taking care of a child does not depend only on the fraternal care network, however on a broader social context.

The reviewed studies that carried out interventions with migrant families give some clues on how social support can help in the transition process that these populations are experiencing. Results indicate significant increases in levels of psychosocial well-being and decrease in PS after caregivers’ participation in all intervention programs (Ceballos et al., 2019; Lakkis et al., 2020; Lim & Osawa, 2014; Miller et al., 2020; Ponguta et al., 2020). These interventions demonstrate promising results, even if they have still operated in a restricted sphere, within NGOs and research centers. Although they have achieved important results, they are still insufficient to meet the high contingent of migrant families demands. Thus, we raise the importance of actions at governmental levels and public policies, taking place especially in the host countries that currently receive most international migrants, such as the developed countries in Global-North or that share borders with countries in war conflicts or severe humanitarian crises.

Summarizing the evidences from the reviewed studies, we observed that social support is one of the main factors to be considered when seeking for strategies to reduce PS in caregivers in international migration process. Although, new studies have to be carried out, considering the present study limitation, which focused on reviewing only studies that assessed the quantitative PS construct. Other psychosocial constructs, such as anxiety, depression, Post-Traumatic Stress disorder should be reviewed, since they have close associations with international migration processes. For future empirical investigations, we suggest that studies should be conducted on PS in South-South migrations, especially in Caribbean-Latin America, in view of the latest migratory flows experienced by Haiti and Venezuela.

Finally, international migration processes will keep happening and they might be rapidly worsened, either as a result of predictable climate change or as a result of the recurrent wars. As an example of this last one, we point out the recent invasion of Ukraine by Russia [2022], which has caused the fastest mass migration in Europe in the last thirty years (Sacchi, 2022). In few weeks, around 6.5 million people left the country, and the overwhelming majority of these migrants were women and children, since men were forced to join Ukraine’s defense forces. This may have strong implications for PS and all other psychosocial dimensions of people who migrated and those who remained in the invaded country. In addition to the tragic war scenarios and to the implications of the COVID-19 pandemics, inequality in the distribution of world income, the precariousness of working conditions, the impoverishment of vulnerable populations, religious and nationalist issues, and other related factors, they will lead millions of people to move across the globe in the coming decades seeking for better living conditions (WEF, 2022). Host countries will need to assist the needs of these migrants, something that either the reviewed PS studies here or the ones involving other psychosocial constructs will contribute to better provide support and humanitarian help for people in international migration processes.