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Narrative Coherence About Romantic Partners During Pregnancy: Associations with Childhood Maltreatment and PTSD Symptoms

Journal of Family Violence volume 38, pages 673–686 (2023)Cite this article

Abstract

Childhood maltreatment is associated with disruptions in narrative coherence about close relationships. The current pilot study introduced a brief new measure of narrative coherence about romantic partners, and tested whether post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms mediated the link between childhood maltreatment and narrative coherence about romantic partners during pregnancy. Participants were 101 low-income, ethnically diverse pregnant women (62% living below the poverty line; 37% Latina, 22% Black, 20% White, 22% other), with high rates of childhood maltreatment. They completed the Five-Minute Speech Sample about their romantic partner (i.e., the baby’s father) during pregnancy, which independent pairs of raters coded for prenatal narrative coherence and prenatal expressed emotion (including negative and warm affect) about partners. Participants also completed standardized self-report instruments assessing childhood maltreatment, romantic partner support, and prenatal PTSD and depression symptoms. Narrative coherence about partners from the Five-Minute Speech Sample showed convergent validity with romantic partner support and expressed emotion about partners. PTSD symptoms (but not depression symptoms) mediated the link between childhood maltreatment and prenatal narrative coherence about partners. The Five-Minute Speech Sample offers a brief and valid strategy to assess NC about romantic partners. PTSD symptoms and narrative coherence about partners are both potential intervention targets to promote healthy psychological and relational functioning during pregnancy.

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Funding

This research was funded by the Coydog Foundation.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, University of Denver, Denver, CO, USA

    Laura M. River, Angela J. Narayan & Miriam L. Castillo

  2. Department of Psychiatry, University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, USA

    Angela J. Narayan & Alicia F. Lieberman

  3. The Center for the Study of Child Development, University of Haifa, Haifa, Israel

    Efrat Sher-Censor

Authors
  1. Laura M. River
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  2. Angela J. Narayan
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  3. Miriam L. Castillo
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  4. Efrat Sher-Censor
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  5. Alicia F. Lieberman
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Contributions

All authors contributed to the study conception and design. Data collection was performed by Angela Narayan and Alicia Lieberman. Data analysis was performed by Laura River, Angela Narayan, and Miriam Castillo. The first draft of the manuscript was written by Laura River and all authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Laura M. River.

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The study was approved by the Institutional Review Board at the University of California, San Francisco. The authors certify that the study was performed in accordance with the ethical standards as laid down in the 1964 Declaration of Helsinki and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards. Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

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The authors have no conflicts of interest to declare that are relevant to the content of this article.

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The ideas and data appearing in this manuscript were previously presented as a poster at the 2019 Society for Research in Child Development conference.

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River, L.M., Narayan, A.J., Castillo, M.L. et al. Narrative Coherence About Romantic Partners During Pregnancy: Associations with Childhood Maltreatment and PTSD Symptoms. J Fam Viol 38, 673–686 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10896-022-00404-7

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