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DEVELOPMENT OF PARENTING SELF-EFFICACY IN MOTHERS OF INFANTS WITH HIGH NEGATIVE EMOTIONALITY
Journal article   Peer reviewed

DEVELOPMENT OF PARENTING SELF-EFFICACY IN MOTHERS OF INFANTS WITH HIGH NEGATIVE EMOTIONALITY

Beth Troutman, Tracy E Moran, Stephan Arndt, Ralph F Johnson and Michael Chmielewski
Infant mental health journal, Vol.33(1), pp.45-54
01/2012
DOI: 10.1002/imhj.20332
PMCID: PMC3875133
PMID: 24382937
url
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/3875133View
Open Access

Abstract

Maternal parenting self-efficacy (PSE) is a potential target for infant mental health interventions because it is associated with a number of positive outcomes for children and mothers. Understanding the development of maternal PSE under conditions of increased parenting stress, such as parenting an infant who is easily distressed and difficult to soothe, will contribute to providing more effective interventions. This study examines the development of maternal PSE in mothers of infants with high negative emotionality (NE). The Neonatal Behavioral Assessment Scale (NBAS; T. Brazelton, 1973) was administered twice to 111 infants to select a sample of irritable ( = 24) and nonirritable ( = 29) infants for a prospective study comparing the development of PSE in mothers of infants differing in neonatal NE. Consistent with our hypotheses and previous research, at 8 weeks' postpartum, mothers of irritable infants have significantly lower domain-specific PSE than do mothers of nonirritable infants. Contrary to our predictions, mothers of irritable infants exhibit a significant increase in domain-specific and domain-general PSE from 8 to 16 weeks' postpartum. The implications of these results for infant mental health screening, infant mental health interventions, and research on self-efficacy theory are discussed.

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