Herbers Janette E, Tabachnick Alexandra R, Hayes Katherine R, Tebepah Tariere C, Wallace Laura E, Cutuli J J
Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Villanova University.
Department of Psychiatry, University of Illinois at Chicago.
J Fam Psychol. 2023 Aug;37(5):689-698. doi: 10.1037/fam0001073. Epub 2023 Apr 13.
Despite the considerable prevalence of homelessness among very young children in the United States, there is a notable lack of research on risk, resilience, and developmental well-being of infants who experience family homelessness. In the present study, we considered social support as a resilience factor for quality of parent-infant relationships and parent depression among a sample of 106 parents and their infants (ages birth to 12 months) residing in emergency shelters for families experiencing homelessness. We assessed social support, parent histories of adverse experiences during childhood and adulthood, and parent current depression symptoms via structured interview measures, and we assessed quality of the parent-infant relationship with an observational approach. Results showed different patterns for the roles of adversity the parents had experienced during childhood compared to adversity experienced more recently, as adults. Childhood adversity predicted parent-infant responsiveness, with a positive association that was moderated by level of perceived social support. Parents with more childhood adversity showed more responsiveness with their infants only when they had access to high levels of social support. Adulthood adversity predicted higher scores for parent depression, while social support predicted lower parent depression scores. This work contributes to the very limited literature on the functioning of families with infants in shelters. Our discussion includes implications for research, policy, and prevention and intervention efforts. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).
尽管美国幼儿中无家可归现象相当普遍，但对于经历家庭无家可归的婴儿的风险、恢复力和发展幸福感的研究却明显不足。在本研究中，我们将社会支持视为居住在为无家可归家庭提供的紧急避难所中的106对父母及其婴儿（年龄从出生到12个月）样本中亲子关系质量和父母抑郁的恢复力因素。我们通过结构化访谈措施评估社会支持、父母童年和成年期的不良经历史以及父母当前的抑郁症状，并通过观察法评估亲子关系质量。结果显示，与父母成年后最近经历的逆境相比，童年时期经历的逆境所起的作用呈现出不同模式。童年逆境预测亲子反应性，存在一种正相关关系，这种关系受到感知社会支持水平的调节。只有在获得高水平社会支持时，童年逆境较多的父母对其婴儿才表现出更多反应性。成年期逆境预测父母抑郁得分较高，而社会支持预测父母抑郁得分较低。这项工作为有关避难所中婴儿家庭功能的非常有限的文献做出了贡献。我们的讨论包括对研究、政策以及预防和干预工作的启示。（PsycInfo数据库记录（c）2023美国心理学会，保留所有权利）
