Poster #101 - Stressful Life Experiences and Maternal Distress in Families Experiencing Homelessness

• In Event: 3-053 - Poster Session 10
  In Poster Session: PS 10 Section - Family Context & Processes

Integrative Statement

Parents undergoing episodes of homelessness experience a multitude of stressors beyond those of typical parenting (Cutuli & Herbers, 2014; Perlman et al., 2012). Risk and resilience literature has utilized cumulative risk models to predict outcomes and demonstrate that the buildup of multiple risks and stressors is more predictive than models using single risk factors. However, a general count of stressors or risks is too simplistic, failing to consider the differential effect of specific stressors on unique individuals (Evans, Li, & Whipple, 2013). We sought to demonstrate that categorization of maternal risks and stressors is more predictive of parenting distress than a simple count. In order to focus solely on the effects of the adversity, we controlled for social support, as it can alleviate feelings of psychological distress (Belsky, 1984).

Participants included 75 mothers with children under age three, recruited from 6 different family shelters in Philadelphia. Mothers responded to questions in a structured interview including demographics and items about their homeless episodes as well as the Life Time Events Questionnaire (Masten et al., 1999), which contains 23 possible adverse events in the mother’s life. The outcome of current distress was assessed by the Symptom Checklist, a brief measure of internalizing symptoms in the past two weeks (Derogatis et al., 1974). Social support was measured by the number of people the mother endorsed in an interview question regarding potential providers of emotional, psychological, or financial support.

We assessed three different categories of adversity: interpersonal violence, intrapersonal problems, and resource-related risks. Items contributing to each of these categories are listed in Table 1. Variables represented sums of the items from each category. We also created a cumulative risk variable as the sum of the three individual categories.

Controlling for social support, we utilized a linear regression model with the outcome of parental distress predicted by the three separate types of adversity (R2 = .280, p = .007). Interpersonal violence (β = .257; p = .018) and intrapersonal problems (β = .270; p = .015) were significant predictors as seen in Table 2. We then compared this to a model in which parental distress was predicted by cumulative risk (R2 = .170; p = .139). The cumulative risk model did not explain as much of the variance and was not statistically significant.

These results indicate that a categorization of maternal stressors better predicts differences in current distress than a simple count of all stressors. This implies that different stressors and risks have different impacts on parents in emergency housing. Our results suggest that supports be put in place in the shelter environment to address these specific risks and stressors, rather than having a one-size-fits-all approach to support. These findings have implications for approaches to future analysis in risk and resilience literature. Potential future directions could include investigating the recency of the stressors and risks.

Authors

• Joanna Nicole Keane, Villanova University
  Presenting Author

• J. J. Cutuli, Rutgers University - Camden
  Non-Presenting Author

• Janette E. Herbers, Villanova University
  Non-Presenting Author