Childhood Maltreatment, Adult Attachment, and Depression as Predictors of Parental Self-Efficacy in At-Risk Mothers

Abstract

Childhood abuse and neglect can have far-reaching effects on adult relationships, mental health, and parenting. This study examined relations between maltreatment types, anxious and avoidant adult attachment, maternal depression, and parental self-efficacy in a community sample of 76 at-risk mothers. After controlling for other forms of maltreatment, emotional abuse uniquely predicted higher levels of anxious attachment and maternal depression. Structural equation modeling revealed that childhood maltreatment predicted lower parental self-efficacy through indirect pathways involving anxious attachment and depression. Specifically, maltreatment's influence on maternal depression was mediated by attachment anxiety, while its influence on parental self-efficacy was mediated by depressive symptoms. Results are discussed in terms of attachment theory and ways in which parental self-efficacy contributes to adaptive caregiving behavior.

Keywords:

• adult attachment
• childhood abuse
• depressive symptoms
• neglect
• parental self-efficacy
• parenting

Acknowledgments

This research was funded by a “Bridging the Causeway” pilot grant sponsored by the Center for Healthcare Policy and Research, the Clinical and Translational Science Center, and the Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research at the University of California, Davis. Statistical support for this publication was made possible by Grant UL1 RR024146 from the National Center for Research Resources (NCRR), a component of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and NIH Roadmap for Medical Research. Its contents are solely the responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official view of NCRR or NIH. Information on NCRR is available at http://www.ncrr.nih.gov/. Information on Re-engineering the Clinical Research Enterprise can be obtained from http://nihroadmap.nih.gov/clinicalresearch/overview-translational.asp. We kindly thank Erika Portillo for her assistance with data collection and Cheryl Caldwell for editorial support. We greatly appreciate the contributions of various Yolo County agencies, their staff, and all the mothers who participated in this research.

Notes

¹Preliminary analyses indicated that demographic variables such as maternal age, number of children at home, and age of youngest child at home did not significantly correlate with key variables. Maternal race or ethnicity (dummy coded as 1 = Caucasian and 2 = Hispanic/Latina) was inversely related to parental self-efficacy, r(76) = –.28, p < .05, and follow-up t tests confirmed that Caucasian mothers reported higher levels of parental self-efficacy compared to Hispanic/Latina mothers, t(72) = 2.49, p < .05. However, when maternal race or ethnicity was included in the regression models, it did not significantly alter the relations among other variables or add predictive power to the models. Moreover, after dichotomizing the sample according to race and ethnicity, the sample size was not adequate to make firm predictions regarding these results. For these reasons, maternal race or ethnicity was not included in subsequent data analyses.

²The cumulative risk score correlated positively with childhood maltreatment, r(76) = .44, p < .01; avoidant attachment, r(76) = .52, p < .01; anxious attachment, r(76) = .53, p < .01; and maternal depression, r(76) = .43, p < .01; but not parental self-efficacy, r(76) = –.21, p > .05. It is noteworthy that among the six risk factors making up the cumulative risk score, the co-parent risk factor (i.e., single-parent status or no child care support from relationship partner) showed the strongest correlation with avoidant attachment, r(76) = .58, p < .01; anxious attachment, r(76) = .49, p < .01; and maternal depression, r(76) = .40, p < .01. However, individual risk factors and the cumulative risk score were not used in the final data analyses because (a) they were utilized as the study's inclusion criteria, (b) sample size did not permit modeling more variables, and (c) they were not related to the outcome variable of parental self-efficacy.