Biomedical subjects
L A Hall
Publications and source records attributed to L A Hall.
Psychosocial predictors of maternal depressive symptoms, parenting attitudes, and child behavior in single-parent families.
The purposes of the study were to identify psychosocial predictors of depressive symptoms among low-income, single mothers and to investigate the effects of maternal psychosocial factors, depressive symptoms, and parenting attitudes on children's behavior. In-home interviews were conducted with 225 mothers to obtain data on their everyday stressors, coping strategies, social resources, depressive symptoms, and parenting attitudes, as well as reports of their children's behavior. High depressive symptoms occurred among 59.6% of the women. Higher depressive symptoms were associated with greater everyday stressors, fewer social resources, and greater use of avoidance coping. Neither social resources nor coping strategies buffered the relationship between everyday stressors and depressive symptoms. Maternal depressive symptoms predicted parenting attitudes. Parenting attitudes, in turn, predicted child behavior. These findings suggest that depressive symptoms are indirectly associated with mothers' reports of child behavior through their influence on parenting attitudes.
Maternal stresses and depressive symptoms: correlates of behavior problems in young children.
In a sample of 115 mothers of 5- and 6-year-old children maternal everyday stressors, stressful life events, and maternal depressive symptoms were compared with mothers' reports of children's behavior problems. Maternal depressive symptoms did not mediate the relationship between either form of stress and child behavior problems. Maternal everyday stressors were more strongly associated with child behavior problems than were life events. Children of mothers indicating a high level of everyday stressors were 13 times more likely to be rated as having behavior problems than children of mothers reporting a low level of everyday stressors. The best prediction of mothers' reports of children's behavioral problems was provided by maternal everyday stressors and stressful life events considered simultaneously.
Effect of teaching on primiparas' perceptions of their newborn.
To determine if a relationship exists between structured, informative in-home teaching concerning infant behavior and primiparous mothers' perceptions of their newborn, 30 primiparas completed Broussard's Neonatal Perception Inventories I and II. The sample--30 women between the ages of 18 and 30 who had had no chronic disorders and had experienced normal pregnancy, labor, delivery, and postpartal course--was deliberately selected from a 489-bed community teaching hospital; 15 women were assigned randomly to a control group and 15 to an experimental group. All participants completed NPI I on their first or second postpartum day. Experimental participants received structured, informative teaching concerning infant behavior two to four days after discharge. All subjects were again visited at one month to complete NPI II. Data were analyzed by t test; significance was set at p = .05. No significant difference was found between the groups in NPI I perceptions. On NPI II a significantly positive change in perception was found for the experimental group, but not for the control group.