Grandmothers in the “sandwich generation” are considered as those women who are potential caregivers for two generations: older relatives and grandchildren. With the goal of understanding the factors that affect their stress and health, 149 women from southwestern Spain were interviewed using an ad hoc questionnaire that included standardized scales and subscales. The results showed that age, coping strategies based on emotional support and acceptance, as well as optimism and social support improved the health of these women by reducing their perceived stress. Although caring for older relatives is related to family conflicts and worse health, conversely, caring for grandchildren is related to slightly better health. The results are useful for planning psychological interventions with these women and highlight the need to include family interventions.

The progressive increase in life expectancy and the verticalization of the family mean that the provision of family care can be stressful and risky for the health of grandmothers who act as caregivers. One hundred and twenty grandmothers were interviewed in southwest Spain; they were daughters of a generation still characterized by high levels of dependence. A questionnaire with standardized psychological scales and items specifically designed for the study was used. Results showed that the burden of the instrumental and economic support had a detrimental effect on their health through stress, which in turn increased when they used coping strategies of denial and self-blame, and decreased with acceptance of reality and when they sought emotional support.

Social self-efficacy has been shown to be a key resource for adolescents’ social experiences with peers and a predictor of prosocial behaviour among adolescents. However, differences by gender, age and socioeconomic level have previously been found in social self-efficacy. The objective of this study is to assess the psychometric properties of the subscale of social self-efficacy from the Self-Efficacy Questionnaire for Children (SEQ-C) developed by Muris (2001) in a representative sample of Spanish adolescents while considering gender, age and socioeconomic level differences. In general, the results showed good psychometric properties and a one-dimensional structure with high internal consistency, adequate explained variance and evidence of external validity for the subscale. Furthermore, the invariance analysis demonstrated that the social self-efficacy subscale shows no bias when used with populations of adolescents who differ by gender, age and socioeconomic level. The results indicate that the Spanish version of the social self-efficacy subscale of the SEQ-C is an adequate measurement instrument for assessing adolescents’ perception of their own social skills.

La pandemia por el covid-19 y las medidas tomadas por las autoridades para frenar su expansión (confinamiento, cierre de establecimientos, restricciones de movilidad o uso obligatorio de mascarilla) afectaron no solo a la salud y la economía de la población española, sino también a su visión y comprensión del mundo, con un impacto especial en los niños y niñas, quienes se encontraban en una fase crucial de desarrollo social y emocional. Se presenta un análisis fenomenológico interpretativo que aborda las vivencias infantiles de la pandemia a través de la técnica storytelling con trece narraciones construidas por grupos de niñas y niños entre 7-14 años, recogidas como parte del trabajo de campo del proyecto de I+D+i INFAPOST[1], con un total de 56 participantes (33 niñas y 23 niños). Los resultados, estructurados en torno a dos ejes —la agencia infantil y la valencia emocional—, muestran cómo las historias que son narradas con mayor nivel de agencia infantil se corresponden con una vivencia emocional positiva, y viceversa. Por otra parte, las historias protagonizadas por niños incluyen contenidos más lúdicos, positivos y activos que las historias protagonizadas por niñas, donde predomina la preocupación por los demás y el cuidado del otro.