TOP 54 - Associations Between Parental Stress and Parenting Quality in Parents of Very Preterm Infants

Publication Number: 3784.TOP 54

Elisabeth McGovern, Women & Infants Hospital of Rhode Island, Cumberland, RI, United States; Alexandrea L.. Craft, The Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University, Providence, RI, United States; Brian S.. Carter, Children's Mercy Hospital, Kansas City, MO, United States; Jennifer Check, Wake Forest School of Medicine of Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center, Winston-Salem, NC, United States; Jennifer helderman, Wake Forest School of Medicine of Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center, Clemmons, NC, United States; Julie Hofheimer, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Durham, NC, United States; Elisabeth McGowan, Women & Infants Hospital of Rhode Island, Providence, RI, United States; Charles Neal, University of Hawaii, John A. Burns School of Medicine, Honolulu, HI, United States; Steven L.. Pastyrnak, Michigan State University College of Human Medicine, Grand Rapids, MI, United States; Lynne Smith, Harbor-UCLA Medical Center, torrance, CA, United States; Thomas M.. O'Shea, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine, Chapel Hill, NC, United States; Carmen Marsit, Emory University Rollins School of Public Health, Atlanta, GA, United States; barry lester, The Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University, east greenwich, RI, United States; Marie Camerota, The Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University, Providence, RI, United States

Background: The hospitalization of a very preterm (VPT) infant in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) is a stressful experience for caregivers. Prior studies have explored a myriad of factors that contribute to parental stress, which can persist long after the child’s discharge from the NICU. Given the lingering impact of the NICU experience on parental functioning, it is important to understand how chronic parental stress can affect the parent-child relationship. This study aims to understand how parental stress and sense of instability in the home environment post-NICU discharge are associated with parenting quality in early childhood among families with VPT children.

Objective: To test associations between self-reported parental stress and perceived instability in the home environment and parenting quality in early childhood among families with VPT children.

Design/Methods: Data for this analysis is obtained from the Environmental Influences on Child Health and the Neonatal Neurobehavior and Outcomes in Very Preterm Infants (ECHO-NOVI) study, a prospective multisite study of children born < 30 weeks gestational age (GA). This analysis will use data from 269 caregiver-child dyads enrolled from 9 NICUs across 6 research sites. Two questionnaires were administered to caregivers across three time-points: the Parenting Stress Index (PSI) at 2 and 3 years, and the Confusion Hubbub and Order Scale (CHAOS) at 4 years. Parenting quality was observed during a caregiver-child interaction task at age 7, and is coded using the Emotional Availability Scales. Our primary outcomes are observed caregiver responsivity (parental sensitivity to the child’s cues) and structuring (parental scaffolding of the child’s activities). All data for this project have been collected; of the 269 families who completed the interaction task, 60 have been coded to date and we anticipate at least 100 families will have coded data by the time of analysis.

This analysis will employ multilevel modeling to examine hypothesized associations between increased parental stress and instability in the home environment and less responsive parenting quality at age 7, controlling for covariates (e.g., GA, sex) and accounting for nesting at the family and site levels.