ARTICLES
Correlates of Depressed Mothers' Sensitivity Toward Their Infants: The Role of Maternal, Child, and Contextual Characteristics

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ABSTRACT

Objective

To examine various maternal, child, and contextual characteristics, as well as the number of risk factors present, to distinguish which factors explain variance in the sensitivity of depressed mothers toward their infants.

Method

Participants were depressed mothers (n = 84) with their infants ages 1 month up to 1 year. Mothers were videotaped while bathing their children. The recordings were rated using the sensitivity scale of the Emotional Availability Scales.

Results

Three characteristics independently contributed to the explained variance in maternal sensitivity: level of education, feelings of parental incompetence, and family income. In addition, two subgroups were found to be particularly at risk: young mothers with high levels of depressive symptoms and low-income mothers who felt insecure about their parental competence. Together, these factors explained 23% of the variation in sensitivity in our sample of depressed mothers. The number of risk factors explained 9.8% of the variation in sensitivity.

Conclusions

The present results have implications for preventive interventions. Identifying specific groups at risk for low maternal sensitivity at an early stage may lead to favorable outcomes of targeted interventions that focus on enhancing depressed mothers' maternal sensitivity and feelingsof parental competence.

Section snippets

Participants

Participants were 84 depressed mothers with infants between 1 and 12 months old (34 girls, 50 boys; mean 5.7 months, SD 3.1). Sixty percent of the children were firstborns, the remaining 40% had one or two siblings (age range 1-16 years; mean 3.9). Their average birth weight was 3,224 g; 15% had a birth weight below 2,500 g.

The mothers were between 20 and 38 years of age (mean 30.0, SD 3.9). Sixty-nine were of Dutch origin and 15 were immigrants or descendants of immigrants of various other

RESULTS

The results are discussed below in three stages. The first subsection presents descriptive statistics and simple correlations between the study variables. This is followed by the results of the four hierarchical regression analyses that we conducted to test how maternal sensitivity could be explained by maternal, child, and contextual characteristics. The final subsection presents the results regarding the contribution of the number of risk factors.

DISCUSSION

The present study examined maternal, child, and contextual characteristics in relation to maternal sensitivity in a sample of young mothers suffering from postpartum depression. Five variables independently contributed to the explained variance in maternal sensitivity in our group of depressed mothers. First of all, a low level of education, feelings of parental incompetence, and low income were associated with lower levels of sensitivity of depressed mothers. In addition, significant

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    This study was funded by agrant (9607.049.2) from ZonMw (The Netherlands Organization for Health Research and Development, Foundation for Children's Welfare Stamps Netherlands and RIAGG IJsselland (Community Mental Health Center).

    Disclosure: The authors have no financial relationships to disclose.

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