Profiles of parenting behaviors and concurrent physiological regulation in mothers from the After Deployment Adaptive Parenting Tools (ADAPT) study: Relationships with child adjustment and response to a parenting intervention

Abstract

This study characterized the heterogeneity of mothers in military families in terms of behavioral parenting skills and concurrent physiological self-regulation during parent-child interaction using person-centered analysis. This study was a secondary data analysis of data from the After Deployment Adaptive Parenting Tools (ADAPT) study. Families in the ADAPT study met inclusion criteria of at least one parent with a recent deployment to war, and at least one child between the ages of four to twelve. Using structural latent profiles analysis, this study examined relationships between the latent subgroups (observed parenting behavior and concurrent mother RSA) and child adjustment outcomes. The resulting four-class measurement model was characterized by the following subgroups of mothers: “Less RSA Variability, High Emotion-Coaching Mothers”, “Average Mothers”, “More Behaviorally Skilled, High RSA Variability Mothers”, and “Less Behaviorally-Skilled, High RSA Variability Mothers.” In the structural model analysis, child Internalizing Problems and Child Externalizing Problems from BASC scales were evaluated in terms of subgroup differences. The “More Behaviorally Skilled, High RSA Variability Mothers” had children who, on average, had fewer Internalizing Problems than other subgroups. Understanding which families benefit from parenting intervention can have important implications for which families should be assigned to which interventions in real world practice (van Aar et al., 2019). The second analysis examined differential treatment response based on intervention status and subgroup membership from the LPA. Unfortunately, the proportions of the latent class membership combined with the overall sample size prevented meaningful evaluation of the research questions due to severe power problems.