The purpose of this study was to analyze current research trends on parenting stress of unmarried mothers in Korea and explore the related concepts.

For searching the literature, KMbase, Korea Med, RISS, NDSL was used. Fourteen studies from 2009 to 2019 were selected, and National Institute of Health (NIH) Study Quality Assessment Tool (SQAT) was applied.

Among the 14 studies, most frequently used study design was correlational study (64.3%), and majority of the study (78.6%) was conducted in the field of social welfare. Only one study was found in the nursing journal. Related concepts can be categorized as individual (cognitive, emotional, and behavioral) factors, and social/environmental factors. Among these, self-esteem, parenting self-efficacy, and health perception in cognitive concept domain, depression in emotional concept domain, parenting behavior in behavioral domain, and lastly, social and interpersonal support were studied as related factors with parenting stress. Overall parenting stress level was higher than moderate, and it was positively related to depression, and negatively related to health perception and social support. Various study tools were used even the original foreign tool was the same, thereby comparisons among studies were difficult.

Future studies are suggested to explore unmarried mother’s physical health problems as well as emotional problems, and to develop reliable measurement tools which can be used in Korean situation. Also, various nursing intervention programs for health promotion and child rearing competence for unmarried mothers should be developed.