The case is made for understanding and applying in social work practice current conceptions of chronic stress. Citing literature from the social sciences, the authors develop and describe a comprehensive model of chronic stress, focusing on single mothers that are experiencing economic poverty. The utility of the model lies in its synthesis of concepts that can be used in direct practice, policy development, and program design.
Models of stress in the psychological literature have moved beyond a concentration on acute life events to smaller more chronic stresssors, commonly called "hassles." The authors review of research suggests that the hassles of women have not been fully differentiated from the hassles of men. Rural women are a sadly neglected group. The authors interviewed thirty-three rural, poor single mothers to identify the hassles in their daily lives. The findings indicate the centrality of their mothering role. Chronic hassles included: children that overwhelm them, children with chronic illness, disciplining children, fathers of the children, negative social network members, and the hassles of finding, keeping, and paying baby-sitters. By exploring the hassles in the lives of rural single mothers, one uncovers the specific environmental conditions of living that tax and at times erode the mothers capacity to cope. Over the past twenty years, chronic stress factors alone or in combination with life events have been found to have major consequences for individual and family well-being. As Moos and Swindle (1990) indicate, interventions addressed to alleviate chronic hassles have the capacity to improve daily functioning and to reduce the potential for depressive disorders in the targeted population (Moos & Swindle, 1990, pp. 176–177).
