Many grandmothers assume the role of primary caregiver and or childcare provider for their children because of the impact of numerous societal antecedents which cause the parent or parents to be absent from the home. However, a limited number of nursing studies have explored the impact of societal antecedents on resilience, coping skills, and stress manifestation in custodial and non-custodial grandparents (Kadner, 1989; Haase, 2004). The purpose of this predictive correlational study was to examine the relationship among selected societal antecedents (child abandonment and/or neglect, parental employment obligations, parental education endeavors, and parental military obligations), coping skills, and resilience in custodial grandparents. A convenience sample of 110 African American custodial and non-custodial grandmothers, 50 to 80 years of age from three parishes in Louisiana participated in this study.

Each participant completed the Grandmother's Demographic Data Profile, The Parenting Stress Index/SF, The Resilience Scale (RS-14), and the Ways of Coping Questionnaire. Multivariate analysis was used to tested several null hypotheses which showed selected societal antecedents did not predict caregiving stress, coping strategies or resilience scores that were significant for custodial and non-custodial African American grandmothers. However, significant correlations did exist between custodial and non-custodial grandmothers for Ways of Coping (p=.033 and indicators of stress (p=.007).

Understanding the impact that selected societal antecedents (child/abandonment and/or neglect, parental employment obligations, parental education endeavors, and parental military obligations), had on grandmother's resilience, coping strategies, and stress manifestations provide nurses with information for developing appropriate interventions to decrease risks associated with assuming the role of parenting during a phase of life for which they had not anticipated raising or providing care for grandchildren. Findings from this study add to the existing body of literature which addresses resilience, coping skills and parenting/caregiving stress in African American grandmothers and broadens the scope of family health nursing and holistic nursing care in grandparent headed households.