NCJ Number
165012
Journal
Child Abuse and Neglect Volume: 20 Issue: 10 Dated: (October 1996) Pages: 933-942
Date Published
1996
Length
10 pages
Annotation
Fifty-four mothers who had dissociative disorders and were in inpatient or day treatment were compared with 20 nondissociative inpatient mothers and 20 hospital staff mothers to determine the extent to which the symptoms of dissociative mothers interfered with their parenting and their subjective experiences of mothering.
Abstract
All participants were screened for dissociative disorders using the Structured Clinical Interview for Dissociative Disorders. They also completed self-report questionnaires, the Subjective Experiences of Parenting Scale, which examined 14 parenting characteristics, including parenting partner support, abusiveness toward the child, extent to which symptoms interfered with parenting, constructive parenting traits, ability to express affection, attachment behaviors, cognitive distortions, and anger regulation. Results revealed that the dissociative mothers presented significantly more negative parenting behavior and related attributes than did the staff controls on 13 of the 14 parenting characteristics. The dissociative mothers also differed from the nondissociative inpatients in their poorer parenting behavior and related attributes on 9 of the 14 characteristics. Overall, the dissociative mothers experienced more problems with parenting attitudes and behaviors than either comparison groups and had affective, behavioral, and cognitive difficulties in parenting. Table and 44 references (Author abstract modified)