Relations among parental stress, parental disrupted communications, and child hair cortisol in a low-risk sample

• In Event: Poster Session 05
  In Poster Session: PS 05 Topic - Parenting & Parent-Child Relationships

Abstract

Extensive literature documents relationships between parental stress, parenting behaviors, and child well-being (Field, 2010; Reupert & Maybery, 2016). Attachment theory (Ainsworth & Bowlby, 1991) posits that parental stress impacts child well-being through insensitive parenting behaviors that disrupt child secure attachment formation. These behaviors, termed disrupted communications (Lyons-Ruth et al., 1999), are associated with child insecure and disorganized attachment formation with long-term implications for child well-being (e.g., Madigan et al., 2006). Impacts to child stress hormone regulation (e.g., cortisol) may be one biological process underlying this relationship. Indeed, previous studies have linked increased cortisol with insecure and disorganized attachment (Bernard & Dozier, 2010; Groh & Narayan, 2019). Using data collected as part of a parenting intervention efficacy study, this secondary data analysis of pre-intervention data aims to investigate the relations between parents’ perceived stress, engagement in disrupted communications, and young children’s biological stress.
Thirty-nine parent-child dyads were recruited through university-based childcare programs (see Table 1). Parent perceived stress was assessed using the Calgary Symptoms of Stress Inventory ([CSOSI] Carlson & Thomas, 2007). The current analyses use the Depression scale of the CSOSI. Child hair samples (10 mg) were collected to analyze cumulative cortisol representing the previous 1-3 months (reported as pg/mg) and assayed using mass spectrometry. Parent-child interactions during a free-play task were measured using the Observed Disrupted Adult-Child Communications Scale ([ODACC] Fanning & Poehlmann-Tynan, 2019), a systematic coding measure of parent engagement in disrupted communications. Based on frequency counts and overall interaction quality, 12 behavior and 2 global codes comprising 6 scales (negative/intrusive, role confusion, fearful/disoriented, affective communication errors, withdrawal, global disruption) are scored on a 5-point likert scale ranging from 1-5, with lower scores indicating more disrupted communication engagement. Intraclass correlation coefficients (ICC) ranged from 0.74 to 0.98, with an average ICC of 0.91. Total scale Chronbach’s alpha was 0.80.
Controlling for child age, partial correlations indicate significant correlations between parent affective communication errors and depressive symptoms. Models using Process (Hayes, 2020) tested each ODACC scale to explore potential mediating or moderating effects of parental behavior. No mediation models emerged significant. Moderation results indicate a significant moderating relationship between parent depressive symptoms and parental withdrawal behaviors on child cortisol (Figure 1, R2 = 0.425, B= -0.758, p < 0.001 ). The remaining ODACC scales were non-significant, though negative/intrusive behaviors approached significance (R2 = 0.210, B = 0.307, p = 0.057). These results suggest that parental withdrawal behaviors impact children’s physiological experiences of stress, which may lead to long-term changes to children’s stress regulating systems. These results reflect similar findings regarding the role of withdrawal behaviors for child attachment (Yarger et al., 2019). Given links between children’s physiological stress and attachment security, this may present one possible biological pathway through which parental behavior influences child insecure and disorganized attachment formation; though much research is still needed.

Authors

• Kerrie Fanning, University of Wisconsin - Madison
  Presenting Author

• Ashleigh Engbretson, University of Wisconsin - Madison
  Non-Presenting Author

• Julie A. Poehlmann-Tynan, University of Wisconsin - Madison
  Non-Presenting Author