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. 2009 Jun;30(3):193-205.
doi: 10.1097/DBP.0b013e3181a7ee53.

Patterns of distress in African-American mothers of preterm infants

Diane Holditch-Davis  1 , Margaret Shandor Miles, Mark A Weaver, Beth Black, Linda Beeber, Suzanne Thoyre, Stephen Engelke
Affiliations

Patterns of distress in African-American mothers of preterm infants

Diane Holditch-Davis et al. J Dev Behav Pediatr. 2009 Jun.

Abstract

Objective: To examine inter-relationships among stress due to infant appearance and behavior in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU), parental role alteration stress in the NICU, depressive symptoms, state anxiety, posttraumatic stress symptoms, and daily hassles exhibited by African-American mothers of preterm infants and to determine whether there were subgroups of mothers based on patterns of psychological distress.

Method: One hundred seventy-seven African-American mothers completed questionnaires on their psychological distress at enrollment during infant hospitalization and 2, 6, 12, 18, and 24 months after term.

Results: Psychological distress measures were intercorrelated. There were four latent classes of mothers: the low distress class with low scores on all measures; the high NICU-related stress class with high infant appearance and parental role stress and moderate scores on other measures; the high depressive symptoms class with high depressive symptoms and state anxiety and moderately elevated scores on NICU-related stress and posttraumatic stress symptoms; the extreme distress class with the highest means on all measures. Infants in the high stress class were sicker than infants in the other classes. The extreme distress class mothers averaged the lowest educational level. The classes differed on distress measures, worry about the child, and parenting stress through 24 months with the extreme distress class having the highest values.

Conclusion: Although different types of maternal psychological distress were substantially related, there were distinct subgroups of mothers that were identifiable in the NICU. Moreover, these subgroups continued to differ on trajectories of distress and on their perceptions of the infants and parenting through 24 months after term.

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Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Mean depression scores for the four classes of mothers over time.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Mean state anxiety scores for the four classes of mothers over time.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Mean post-traumatic stress scores for the four classes of mothers over time.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Mean daily hassles scores for the four classes of mothers over time.
Figure 5
Figure 5
Mean worry about the child for the four classes of mothers over time.
Figure 6
Figure 6
Mean parenting stress scores for the four classes of mothers over time.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

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