Cumulative Risk for Children’s Behavior Problems and Child Abuse Potential among Mothers Receiving Substance Use Treatment: The Unique Role of Parenting Stress

ABSTRACT

There is a high prevalence of children whose parents suffer with a substance use disorder (SUD), which is associated with negative outcomes for children such as behavior problems and parents’ child abuse potential. To understand negative consequences for children, it is important to consider a cumulative risk model, examining the impact of multiple co-occurring risks, as well as examine unique singular risk factors, such as parenting stress, which may have a direct effect on outcomes as well as mediate an association between cumulative risk and outcomes. Data came from 99 mothers with SUD, engaged in a substance treatment program. Results found support for a cumulative risk model for child behavior problems and parents’ child abuse potential, without the inclusion of parenting stress. However, parenting stress partially and fully mediated the relation between cumulative risk and child behavior problems and cumulative risk and parent child abuse potential, respectively. Results suggest the importance of intervention programs targeting parenting stress, to help reduce child behavior problems and parents’ child abuse potential, among parents with high levels of risk and SUD.

KEYWORDS:

• Cumulative risk
• parenting stress
• substance use disorder
• behavior problems
• child abuse potential

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Consent to Participate

Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

Consent to Publish

Patients signed informed consent regarding publishing their data

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the National Institutes of Health/National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIH/NIDA) [K12-5K12DA031794-03]