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History of Maltreatment in Childhood and Subsequent Parenting Stress in At-Risk, First-Time Mothers: Identifying Points of Intervention During Home Visiting

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An Erratum to this article was published on 08 March 2017

Abstract

Home visiting is an effective preventive intervention that can improve parenting outcomes for at-risk, new mothers, thereby optimizing subsequent child development. A history of maltreatment in childhood is common in mothers participating in home visiting, yet the extent to which such a history is related to parenting outcomes during home visiting is unknown. The current study evaluated whether mothers with a history of maltreatment in childhood respond less favorably to home visiting by examining the direct and indirect pathways to subsequent parenting stress, a key parenting outcome affecting child development. First-time mothers (N = 220; age range = 16–42) participating in one of two home visiting programs, Healthy Families America or Nurse Family Partnership, were evaluated at enrollment and again at 9-and 18-month post-enrollment assessments. Researchers administered measures of maternal history of maltreatment in childhood, depressive symptoms, social support, and parenting stress. Maternal history of maltreatment in childhood predicted worsening parenting stress at the 18-month assessment. Mediation modeling identified two indirect pathways, one involving social support at enrollment and one involving persistent depressive symptoms during home visiting, that explained the relation between a history of maltreatment in childhood and parenting stress at the 18-month assessment. Ways to improve the preventive effects of home visiting for mothers with a history of maltreatment in childhood through the identification of relevant intervention targets and their ideal time of administration are discussed.

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Acknowledgments

The authors express thanks to all the organizations contributing to Every Child Succeeds. We also wish to thank Alonzo T. Folger, Ph.D., for his assistance in preparing this manuscript. This study is supported by Grant R40 MC 06632-01 (Ammerman) from the Maternal and Child Health Bureau (Title V, Social Security Act), Health Resources and Services Administration, Department of Health and Human Services. Angelique R. Teeters is currently with TriHealth, Group Health Physicians, Cincinnati, Ohio. The authors acknowledge the participation and support of the United Way of Greater Cincinnati, Kentucky HANDS, and Ohio Help Me Grow.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Human Development and Family Studies, The Pennsylvania State University, 115 Health and Human Development Building, University Park, PA, 16802, USA

    Chad E. Shenk & Elizabeth K. Allen

  2. Department of Pediatrics, College of Medicine, The Pennsylvania State University, State College, PA, USA

    Chad E. Shenk

  3. Department of Pediatrics, College of Medicine, Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center and University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, OH, USA

    Robert T. Ammerman, Angelique R. Teeters, Heather E. Bensman & Judith B. Van Ginkel

  4. Department of Psychiatry, School of Medicine, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC, USA

    Frank W. Putnam

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  1. Chad E. Shenk
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  4. Heather E. Bensman
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Correspondence to Chad E. Shenk.

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Human and Animal Rights and Informed Consent

All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards. Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

Additional information

The original version of this article was revised. The article was published with an incorrectly placed arrow in Figure 2. The corrected Figure 2 demonstrates the cross-lagged nature of the mediation model tested.

An erratum to this article is available at http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11121-017-0766-4.

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Shenk, C.E., Ammerman, R.T., Teeters, A.R. et al. History of Maltreatment in Childhood and Subsequent Parenting Stress in At-Risk, First-Time Mothers: Identifying Points of Intervention During Home Visiting. Prev Sci 18, 361–370 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11121-017-0758-4

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