Psychometric Properties of the Parenting Sense of Competence Scale Among Low-Income Mexican American Mothers

The Parenting Sense of Competence Scale (PSOC) is one of the most commonly used self-report measures of parenting competence, yet there exists limited work documenting its psychometric properties among ethnically and culturally diverse populations of parents. We evaluated the factor structure and validity of the PSOC (administered in English and Spanish) among a sample of low-income, predominantly Spanish-speaking Mexican-origin mothers of infants in the United States. Two hundred and five women (mean age 27.8) reported on their parenting competence, parenting stress, depressive symptoms, and infant’s temperament at 12 months postpartum. A two-factor structure (parenting satisfaction and parenting self-efficacy) emerged as the best fit to the data. Both subscores demonstrated acceptable internal consistency and validity evidence. Findings extend existing work documenting a two-factor structure of the PSOC and provides preliminary validity support for use of the PSOC and Spanish-translated PSOC among Mexican American mothers.