Paternal Alcoholism, Parental Psychopathology, and Aggravation with Infants
Section snippets
Participants
The participants were 216 families with 12-month-old infants who were recruited for an ongoing longitudinal study of parenting and infant development. Families were assigned to one of two major groups: the control group consisting of parents with few current alcohol problems (n=101), and the father alcoholic group (n=115) consisting of alcoholic fathers and two groups of mothers, those who had few current alcohol problems (n=92), or those who had a number of current alcohol problems or were
Demographics and Gender Differences
The first set of analyses focused on group differences on demographic variables like family income, parental education, parental age, number of work hours, and parity. The analyses indicated significant effects of group status on fathers' education, F(1,214)=7.40, p<.01, and maternal age, F(1,214)=5.71, p<.05. Alcoholic fathers were less educated (M=14.16 and 13.07, SD=3.31 and 2.56 for control and alcoholic groups, respectively) and had younger partners (M=31.51 and 30.16, SD=4.33 and 3.96 for
Discussion
Several studies on non-alcoholic populations have suggested the importance of parental attitudes for parenting behavior and child outcomes Goldberg and Easterbrooks, 1984, Cox et al., 1992. However, virtually nothing is known about the impact of parental characteristics like alcoholism and antisocial behavior on parental attitudes during infancy. The results from this study indicate that fathers' alcohol problems and associated characteristics like antisocial behavior and depression play a
Acknowledgements
The authors thank the parents and infants who participated in this study and the research staff who were responsible for conducting numerous assessments with these families. Special thanks to Ellen Edwards for her contributions as Project Administrator. This study was made possible by grants from NIAAA (#1RO1 AA 10042-01A1) and NIDA (1K21DA00231-01A1).
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