Department of Psychology, Williams College, Williamstown, MA, USA,
Arch Womens Ment Health. 2014 Jun;17(3):199-212. doi: 10.1007/s00737-014-0424-9. Epub 2014 Mar 20.
Two studies examined the relationship between maternal attitudes and symptoms of depression and anxiety during pregnancy and the early postpartum period. In the first study, a measure of maternal attitudes, the Attitudes Toward Motherhood Scale (AToM), was developed and validated in a sample of first-time mothers. The AToM was found to have good internal reliability and convergent validity with cognitive biases and an existing measure of maternal attitudes. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses determined that the measure comprises three correlated factors: beliefs about others' judgments, beliefs about maternal responsibility, and maternal role idealization. In the second study, we used the AToM to assess the relationship between maternal attitudes and other psychological variables. The factor structure of the measure was confirmed. Maternal attitudes predicted symptoms of depression and anxiety, and these attitudes had incremental predictive validity over general cognitive biases and interpersonal risk factors. Overall, the results of these studies suggest that maternal attitudes are related to psychological distress among first-time mothers during the transition to parenthood and may provide a useful means of identifying women who may benefit from intervention during the perinatal period.
两项研究考察了孕妇和产后早期母亲态度和抑郁、焦虑症状之间的关系。第一项研究中，开发并验证了一种用于首次生育母亲的母亲态度衡量标准——母亲态度量表（AToM）。该量表具有良好的内部可靠性和与认知偏差以及现有母亲态度衡量标准的聚合效度。探索性和验证性因子分析确定该量表包含三个相关因素：他人判断信念、母亲责任信念和母亲角色理想化信念。在第二项研究中，我们使用 AToM 来评估母亲态度与其他心理变量之间的关系。该量表的因子结构得到了确认。母亲态度预测了抑郁和焦虑症状，并且这些态度比一般认知偏差和人际风险因素具有更高的预测有效性。总的来说，这些研究结果表明，母亲态度与首次生育母亲在向父母身份过渡期间的心理困扰有关，并且可能为识别在围产期可能受益于干预的女性提供了有用的方法。
