Research Findings: Supportive mother-child interactions promote the development of social-emotional competence. Poverty and other associated psychosocial risk factors have a negative impact on mother-child interaction. In spite of Latino children being disproportionately represented among children living in poverty, research on mother-child…

Explored ability of parenting stress to predict maternal behaviors among low-income women, about half of whom were residing in a battered women's shelter. Assessed parenting stress, maternal adjustment, marital relationship, and responses to typical child behaviors. Found that parenting stress predicts use of positive behaviors like affection and…

Examined psychometric properties of Parenting Stress Index. Subjects were 191 low-income, urban African American mothers. Found acceptable subscale internal consistency and stability over six months. Concurrent validity revealed high convergence across measures among mothers reporting consistent stress. Subjects reported elevated stress levels in…

Examined behavioral and contextual factors that are manifested as parenting stress. Data were collected from mother-child interaction, preschool teacher reports of child behavior problems, maternal reports of child behavior problems, and other risk factors. Results showed maternal behavior was associated more with total parenting stress than with…

Examined the validity of the parent and child scales of the French version of the Parenting Stress Index (PSI). Results suggest the two main factors of the PSI represent valid and relatively independent sources of information, and that the PSI may be particularly useful in assessing combinations of stressors, which appear to be harmful for the…

The validity of the Questionnaire on Resources and Stress (QRS) and the Parenting Stress Index (PSI) was examined in a study of 53 mothers with young children in early intervention programs. Expectations that QRS and PSI scores were related in expected ways were generally confirmed. (Author/LB)