Date of Award

8-24-2024

Document Type

Doctoral Research Paper

Degree Name

Psy.D.

Organizational Unit

Graduate School of Professional Psychology

First Advisor

Angela J. Narayan

Second Advisor

John Holmberg

Third Advisor

Emily Markley

Keywords

Parent, Child, Self-efficacy, Parenting self-efficacy, Mother, Father, Postpartum

Abstract

Despite a wealth of research on predictors and correlates of parental self-efficacy (PSE), very little research has examined whether a history of caregiving from one’s own childhood predicts parental PSE, or if depression symptoms are associated with both mothers’ and fathers’ PSE during the pregnancy and early postpartum periods. The current study examined whether parents’ childhood maltreatment (total abuse and neglect) was associated with mothers’ and fathers’ PSE, and whether both parents’ PSE related to their prenatal and postnatal depression symptoms. Mothers (n = 170; M age = 28.07, SD = 5.77, range = 18-41; 40.0% White; 24.1%, Latina; 14.1%, Black; 11.8% biracial/multiracial; 10.0% other) and fathers (n = 87; M age = 29.84, SD = 7.17, range = 18-51; 36.8% White; 20.7%, Latino; 17.2%, Black; 20.7% biracial/multiracial; 4.6% other) of babies aged three to four months old completed ratings on PSE, as well as standardized questionnaires on childhood maltreatment and perinatal depression symptoms. Contrary to hypotheses, parents’ childhood maltreatment was not associated with their PSE, however, post-hoc exploratory analyses showed that mothers and fathers who were flagged as minimizing abuse and neglect and over-idealizing their childhoods as positive showed significantly higher levels of PSE. Furthermore, while depression symptoms during pregnancy were not associated with PSE for mothers or fathers, fathers with higher postnatal depression symptoms reported significantly lower PSE, and mothers with higher postnatal depression symptoms reported marginally significantly lower PSE. These findings indicate that prior maternal or paternal depression symptoms during pregnancy does not seem to influence self-reported PSE during the early postpartum period. Rather, parental PSE may be an indicator of early postpartum depression symptoms, particularly for fathers. Implications are discussed for screening and identification of parents in need of clinical services during the early postpartum period.

Copyright Date

6-10-2024

Copyright Statement / License for Reuse

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Publication Statement

Copyright is held by the author. User is responsible for all copyright compliance.

Rights Holder

Carly Girnun

Provenance

Received from author

File Format

application/pdf

Language

English (eng)

Extent

22 pgs

File Size

219 KB

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Available for download on Thursday, July 22, 2027



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