Aim: The present study was conducted to investigate the mediating effect of parental burnout in the relationship between depression and neuroticism and child rejection in parents. ▌Method: This study employed a correlational design. Accordingly, 206 parents (127 mothers and 79 fathers), aged 21–47 years, voluntarily participated in the study using convenience sampling. The research instruments included the Persian version of the Parental Burnout Assessment (Mousavi et al., 2020), the Neuroticism scale developed by Gosling et al. (2003), the Parental Rejection scale by Rohner and Ali (2020), and the Depression scale by Kroenke et al. (2001). ▌Finding: The results indicated that the total effect of neuroticism on parental rejection was not significant (β = .02, p > .05), whereas the total effect of depression on child rejection was significant (β = .03, p < .001). Furthermore, depression (β = .35, p < .01) and neuroticism (β = .16, p < .01) had significant effects on parental burnout. The effect of parental burnout on parental rejection was also significant (β = .69, p < .05). In addition, the indirect effects of depression (β = .24, 95% CI [.006, .05]) and neuroticism (β = .11, 95% CI [.005, .07]) on parental rejection through parental burnout were significant. ▌Conclusion: Attention to high-risk personality traits such as neuroticism and mood disorders such as depression, which increase the likelihood of parental burnout in parents and may lead to negative parenting outcomes such as child rejection, is of considerable importance in the field of parenting. Therefore, helping parents to recognize and effectively cope with these high-risk factors can facilitate constructive parenting conditions and reduce the effects associated with parental burnout.
