- Title
- What characteristics are associated with good versus poor parenting outcomes amongst parents living with psychotic disorders: a confirmatory factor analysis
- Creator
- Campbell, Linda E.
- Relation
- University of Newcastle Research Higher Degree Thesis
- Resource Type
- thesis
- Date
- 2015
- Description
- Masters Research - Master of Clinical Psychology (MClinPsych)
- Description
- Scope: Parenthood is central to most adult people’s personal and social identity. For many people with psychotic disorders, parenthood is associated with formidable challenges that, for some, are difficult to overcome. Some of these challenges are present prior to the onset of the psychotic disorder, yet others occur as a consequence of the disorder. Many of these challenges are associated with social disadvantage that would make it difficult to parent with or without a psychotic disorder. Others are more directly associated with disorder itself such as problematic symptoms and decreased level of functioning. Whilst some parents with psychotic disorder manage well in their parenting, others have problems that can result in poor parent-child relationships and/or loss of custody. Purpose: The current study aimed to identify latent variables predictive of good enough parenting outcome amongst a representative sample of parents with psychotic disorders. Methodology: The second Australian national survey used a two-phase design to include a catchment population of 1.5 million people aged 18-64 (Morgan et al., 2012). In the first phase people who attended services that support people with mental illness, such as public mental health services and non-government organisations, were screened for psychosis during the census month (March, 2010). Of those participants who screened positive (N= 7955), a randomised sample stratified by age group was chosen and asked to consider participation in the study. Thereafter, in the second phase a total of 1825 people were interviewed and assessed. Out of these participants, data pertaining to 234 parents living with dependent children were included in the current analysis. Parenting outcome was operationalized as quality of care of children (last 12 months). Five latent variables were constructed, using a hypothesis-driven approach from contemporary literature, and labelled psychosocial support, illness severity, substance abuse/dependence, adaptive functioning and parenting role. The data were analysed using a confirmatory factor analysis. Results: Importantly, seventy-five per cent of participants were not identified as having any parenting dysfunction in the last 12 months (outcome variable). Out of five hypothesised latent variables, severity of illness and adaptive functioning were found to be reliably associated with the outcome variable. Meanwhile, neither the latent variables psychosocial functioning, substance abuse/dependence nor parenting role was found to be related to the outcome variable although the variables did have an indirect relationship via their association with either severity of illness and/or adaptive functioning. General conclusions: Whilst the majority of the participants were functioning adequately well in their parenting role, for those parents who were not doing well, increased symptom severity and decreased adaptive functioning presented significant difficulties. Implications: Many parents with psychosis are in need of assistance to manage their parenting obligations. However, it is important to consider that symptoms and functioning can change episodically and therefore it is vital to have targeted and flexible support that can temporarily assist in times of need to improve not only parenting outcomes but also maximise child outcomes.
- Subject
- parenting; psychosis; severe mental illness; quality of care
- Identifier
- http://hdl.handle.net/1959.13/1308159
- Identifier
- uon:21620
- Rights
- Copyright 2015 Linda E. Campbell
- Language
- eng
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| View Details Download | ATTACHMENT02 | Thesis | 684 KB | Adobe Acrobat PDF | View Details Download |