Relations of Maternal Depression and Parenting Self-Efficacy to the Self-Regulation of Infants in Low-Income Homes

Abstract

There is increasing recognition that young children's self-regulation provides a foundation for overall wellness later in life. Yet, infants reared in poverty may exhibit less-developed self-regulation compared to their more advantaged peers. Factors associated with poverty that may influence early self-regulation include maternal depression and parenting self-efficacy. However, few researchers have examined how both parenting self-efficacy and maternal depression may affect young children's self-regulation. The purpose of this study was to investigate the associations among maternal depression, parenting self-efficacy, and infant self-regulation for a racially diverse sample of 142 mother-infant dyads living in low-income households in the United States. Maternal depressive symptomatology was determined with the Edinburgh Postnatal Depressive Scale. Parenting self-efficacy was determined with a self-report measure, reflecting caregivers' mindset or feelings reflecting competency as a parent of an infant. Infant self-regulation was measured by parental report of the Infant Behavior Questionnaire Short Form Effortful Control subscale. While maternal depressive symptomatology and self-efficacy were directly and significantly correlated with infant self-regulation, results of a mediation model suggested that parenting self-efficacy mediated the relationship between maternal depressive symptomatology and infant self-regulation. Lower maternal depressive symptomatology predicted better parenting self-efficacy, in turn predicting better infant self-regulation. This study increases our understanding of how early factors shape the self-regulation of infants reared in low-income homes - highlighting the potential role of targeting parenting self-efficacy for parenting interventions for mothers experiencing depressive symptoms.

Keywords: maternal depression; maternal self-efficacy; mediation; mother-infant dyad; self-regulation.

Figure 1.

Arrival to the subsample size for the current study. IBQ = Infant Behavior Questionnaire-Revised Very Short Form; TP1 = Time Point 1; TP2 = Time Point 2; TP3 = Time Point 3.

Figure 2.

Mediation model demonstrating results of statistical analysis used to test aim 1. “C” is the total effects model, where C is the total effect of X (maternal depression symptomatology) on Y (infant self-regulation). For the mediation model, a*b is the indirect effect of X on Y and c’ is the direct effect of X on Y. The indirect effect (a*b) was obtained by multiplying path a and path b together – demonstrated to be statistically significant based on PROCESS analyses.