Parenting Profiles, Intolerance of Uncertainty, and Worry among Chinese Primary School Children

This study identified the profiles of Chinese children’s perceived parenting style and examined profile differences in worry and intolerance of uncertainty (IU) and whether differences on worry were mediated by IU. A sample of 591 primary school children (aged 9–12 years) in China completed self-report questionnaires assessing perceived parenting style, IU and worry. Latent profile analysis on six parenting dimensions (emotional warmth, rejection and overprotection for fathers and mothers) identified four parenting profiles: supportive, disengaged, harsh, and highly harsh. The supportive and disengaged parenting profiles showed lower levels of worry than the harsh and highly harsh parenting profiles, and the supportive parenting profile had the lowest level of IU. The results of multicategorical mediation analysis showed that difference in child worry between the supportive and harsh parenting profile was fully mediated by IU. The findings of this study revealed the internal mechanisms of child worry using a person-centered approach within the Chinese cultural background and provided initial evidence for parenting interventions to alleviate children’s worry.