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Reflective functioning in fathers with young children born preterm and at term

Nina Ruiz1, Andrea Witting1, Lieselotte Ahnert1

  • 1Faculty of Psychology, University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria.

Attachment & Human Development
|March 23, 2019
PubMed

Insights

Fathers of preterm infants showed lower reflective functioning (RF) than mothers. Parental reflective functioning and concerns differed based on child

Area of Science:

  • Parenting research
  • Developmental psychology
  • Infant mental health

Background:

  • Reflective functioning (RF) is crucial for effective parenting.
  • Understanding parental RF in relation to child prematurity is important.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To compare reflective functioning (RF) scores between fathers and mothers of preterm and full-term infants.
  • To analyze differences in parental concerns based on child's prematurity and parent's gender.

Main Methods:

  • Utilized the Parent Development Interview (PDI) with 322 parents of 173 children (12-20 months).
  • Applied Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) modeling to analyze parental concerns.
  • Assessed RF scores and disclosed topics.

Main Results:

  • Parents of full-term infants had similar RF scores.
  • Fathers of preterm infants scored lower in RF compared to mothers of preterm infants.
  • Fathers' RF related to paternal role and interests; mothers' RF related to child-rearing concerns.

Conclusions:

  • Preterm birth impacts fathers' reflective functioning more than mothers'.
  • Parental concerns and RF are influenced by child's gestational age and parental gender.
  • Supports targeted parental support for fathers of preterm infants.

Keywords:
Parentingchild’s needsfather rolementalizationtopics about parenting

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