Xu Mengxue, Sun Hongyi, Liu Aihua, Zhao Xuhang, Zhang Yuning, Guan Hongyan
Nurturing Care Research and Guidance Center, Child Healthcare Center, Capital Institute of Pediatrics, Beijing, China.
Centre for Innovation in Mental Health, School of Psychology, University of Southampton, Southampton, UK.
J Glob Health. 2025 May 12;15:04042. doi: 10.7189/jogh.15.04042.
Parenting behavioural profiles differ across cultural, economic, and ethnic contexts. China, with one of the largest child populations worldwide, faces the challenge of poor developmental outcomes during early childhood in rural areas. Using a data-driven approach, we aimed to explore distinct parenting profiles, their corresponding developmental outcomes during early childhood, and the associated family risk factors.
We enrolled children and their caregivers from a national poverty-stricken county in China. We used the Bayley Scales of Infant and Toddler Development - Third Edition to measure their developmental outcomes by cognition, motor, and language, and we assessed their social-emotional development using the Chinese version of Ages and Stages Questionnaire: Social-Emotional, Second Edition. We used latent profile analysis to examine the patterns of parenting behaviour and examined the difference in developmental outcomes and familial risk factors via analysis of variance.
We interviewed 260 children (mean age = 9.62, standard deviation (SD) = 3.76 months; 51.5% female) and their caregivers from a national poverty-stricken county in China. The two-profile solution best fitted the data and indicated two parenting style patterns: low human stimulation (HS) & low social support (SS) group (n = 61, 23.46%) and high HS & high SS group (n = 199, 76.54%). There was a significant difference in children's social emotional development (P = 0.013) and mothers' depression score (P = 0.046) between the two parenting behavioural patterns.
Our study provides evidence on maternal parenting behaviour, associated risks, and child development outcomes in rural China, with significant implications for further high-quality interventions in regions of comparable economic level, particularly in the rural areas of Western China.
育儿行为模式在不同文化、经济和种族背景中存在差异。中国是全球儿童人口最多的国家之一，农村地区面临幼儿发育不良的挑战。我们采用数据驱动的方法，旨在探索不同的育儿模式、其在幼儿期相应的发育结果以及相关的家庭风险因素。
我们招募了来自中国一个国家级贫困县的儿童及其照料者。我们使用贝利婴幼儿发展量表第三版，通过认知、运动和语言来测量他们的发育结果，并使用中文版的《年龄与阶段问卷：社会情绪，第二版》评估他们的社会情绪发展。我们使用潜在剖面分析来研究育儿行为模式，并通过方差分析检验发育结果和家庭风险因素的差异。
我们采访了来自中国一个国家级贫困县的260名儿童（平均年龄 = 9.62岁，标准差（SD）= 3.76个月；51.5%为女性）及其照料者。双剖面解决方案最适合数据，并表明两种育儿风格模式：低人际刺激（HS）和低社会支持（SS）组（n = 61，23.46%）和高HS和高SS组（n = 199，76.54%）。两种育儿行为模式在儿童社会情绪发展（P = 0.013）和母亲抑郁评分（P = 0.046）方面存在显著差异。
我们的研究提供了关于中国农村地区母亲育儿行为、相关风险和儿童发育结果的证据，对经济水平相当地区，特别是中国西部农村地区的进一步高质量干预具有重要意义。
