Early Parenting Stress and Later Abuse Risk: Dyadic Analysis of Mediation by Maternal and Paternal Negative...

Predicting the likelihood parents will become physically abusive towards their children remains a high priority. Early parenting stress may increase the extent to which parents negatively appraise their children's behaviours, which in turn may influence their abuse risk. This study explored whether parental negative attributions mediated the association between early parenting stress and later abuse risk. A sample of 186 first-time mothers and 146 of their male partners reported on their parenting stress when infants were 6 months old and their negative attributions regarding child behaviours at 18 months. Parents' child abuse risk was assessed at age four using two self-report and one analog measure. Mediation models were tested for mothers and fathers separately, followed by a dyadic model permitting direct comparisons between mothers and fathers. Mothers' early parenting stress predicted their later child abuse risk and was partially mediated through negative attributions in both models. Fathers' early parenting stress predicted their later abuse risk in the independent model but was unrelated in the dyadic model. Instead, a relationship between paternal negative attributions and later child abuse risk emerged. Comparison testing revealed no significant differences between mothers and fathers. Results suggest that early parenting stress and negative attributions may be important intervention points to reduce child abuse risk for both mothers and fathers.