بهداشت روانی مادران، کیفیت مراقبت از کودکان و رفتار کودکان

Moderating effects of non-parental preschool child care quality on the impact of maternal mental health risks on children's behavioral and mental health outcomes were examined. The paper presents data both on the concurrent buffering effects on children at the age of 4 ½ while they are in child care as well as on the longitudinal effects on the children two years later in the first grade. Study participants included 294 mothers, fathers, their children, their children's non-parental caregivers in preschool child care programs and their children's first grade teachers from the Wisconsin Study of Families and Work. Using regression models to examine moderation, we found that in low quality child care, children exposed to elevated maternal depressive symptoms and anger showed more behavioral problems and worse prosocial functioning. In contrast, children in high quality child care did not present higher symptoms in relation to elevated mother mental health risks. Significant moderating effects were found in both concurrent and longitudinal analyses. Results point to potential buffering effects of high quality care for children faced with adverse family factors.

The child outcome variables were moderately to highly correlated within the same measure (e.g., for PBQ subscales r = .42–.65) and weakly to moderately correlated with each other across the measures (. r = .17–.59; see Table 1). Even though the high correlations indicate some overlap between the PBQ subscales, moderation results are presented for all three subscales because they have been linked differentially to child maladaptive behaviors. For example, scores on the Hostile–Aggressive subscale in preschool have been linked to externalizing behaviors in the early school years ( Silver, Measelle, Armstrong, & Essex, 2005), Anxious–Fearful behavior at age 4.5 was a strong predictor of internalizing behavior during kindergarten ( Smider et al., 2002), and all three scales have showed different patterns of association with physiological markers of child affective and anxiety disorders ( Boyce et al., 2002a).