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Psychometric Properties of the Parenting Sense of Competence Scale Among Low-Income Mexican American Mothers

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Abstract

The Parenting Sense of Competence Scale (PSOC) is one of the most commonly used self-report measures of parenting competence, yet there exists limited work documenting its psychometric properties among ethnically and culturally diverse populations of parents. We evaluated the factor structure and validity of the PSOC (administered in English and Spanish) among a sample of low-income, predominantly Spanish-speaking Mexican-origin mothers of infants in the United States. Two hundred and five women (mean age 27.8) reported on their parenting competence, parenting stress, depressive symptoms, and infant’s temperament at 12 months postpartum. A two-factor structure (parenting satisfaction and parenting self-efficacy) emerged as the best fit to the data. Both subscores demonstrated acceptable internal consistency and validity evidence. Findings extend existing work documenting a two-factor structure of the PSOC and provides preliminary validity support for use of the PSOC and Spanish-translated PSOC among Mexican American mothers.

Highlights

  • Psychometric evaluation of the PSOC scale among Mexican American (MA) mothers.

  • Two factor structure emerged: parenting satisfaction and parenting self-efficacy.

  • Results support use of PSOC scale in Spanish among MA mothers.

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Notes

  1. An additional CFA tested the two-factor solution of the PSOC (parenting self-efficacy, parenting satisfaction) among only Spanish-speaking mothers (n = 176). The two-factor model among Spanish-speaking mothers had similar fit to the model tested with the full sample: CFI = 0.90, RMSEA = 0.064, SRMR = 0.069. Factor loadings in the Spanish-only CFA were highly correlated with the loadings in the CFA among the full sample (r > 0.99, p < 0.001).

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Acknowledgements

We thank the mothers and infants for their participation; Kirsten Letham, Monica Gutierrez, Elizabeth Nelson, and Jody Southworth-Brown for their assistance with data collection and management; Dr. Dean Coonrod and the Maricopa Integrated Health System for their assistance with recruitment; and the interviewers for their commitment and dedication to this project.

Funding

The study was funded by the National Institute of Mental Health (R01 MH083173-01 and R01 MH083173-01A1S).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, 85287, USA

    Sarah G. Curci MA, Linda J. Luecken PhD & Michael C. Edwards PhD

Authors
  1. Sarah G. Curci MA
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  2. Linda J. Luecken PhD
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  3. Michael C. Edwards PhD
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Correspondence to Sarah G. Curci MA.

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The authors declare no competing interests.

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Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

Ethical Approval

The questionnaires and methodology was approved by the Institutional Review Boards at Arizona State University and Maricopa Integrated Health System. The study complied with the World Medical Association Declaration of Helsinki ethical principles

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Curci, S.G., Luecken, L.J. & Edwards, M.C. Psychometric Properties of the Parenting Sense of Competence Scale Among Low-Income Mexican American Mothers. J Child Fam Stud 30, 3121–3130 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10826-021-02093-0

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