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APHA Scientific Session and Event Listing

Katara Watkins, BA, Kennedy Krieger Family Center, Howard University/Kennedy Krieger Institute, 2901 East Biddle Street, Attn.: Dr. Harolyn Belcher, Baltimore, MD 21213, 443-923-5933, watkinska@kennedykrieger.org and Harolyn Belcher, MD, Kennedy Krieger Family Center/Johns Hopkins Department of Pediatrics, Kennedy Krieger Institute, 2901 East Biddle St., Atten: Dr. Belcher, Baltimore, MD 21213.

Early Head Start (EHS) facilitates child health and development for children from 2 months to 3 years. This study hypothesized that improved parental knowledge of child development would be associated with optimal parenting styles and reduced perceived parental stress. Knowledge of Infant Development Inventory (KIDI), Parenting Style Expectations (PSE), and Parent Stress Index (PSI) were used to evaluate caregivers. Knowledge of early child development was measured by the KIDI. Three subscales, Responsiveness/Empathy (RE) score, Abuse/Neglect (AN) score, Authoritarianism (AU) score, were used from the PSE. The PSI measured perceived parental stress. Descriptive statistics, univariate and bivariate regression were used to analyze the data. Caregivers included 129 primarily African American (95.3%) individuals, mean age 29.8 (+10.3) years, majority women (94.6%). Mean number of individuals per household was 4.2 (+ 1.8). Mean education level of the primary caregiver was 12.1 (+1.5) and the mean household monthly income was $1,156.4 (+786.1). Significant associations were found on univariate analyses between the KIDI and the RE (B: 0.81; 95% confidence interval (95% CI) 0.42-1.21), AN (B: 2.24; 95% CI, 0.87-3.61), and AU (B: 1.47; 95% CI, 0.68-2.25) and bivariate analysis adjusting for total household occupants, total monthly income, and primary caregiver education. A significant inverse relationship was noted between KIDI and the total PSI (B: -0.24; 95% CI, -0.46 - -0.03). These findings suggest that improved knowledge of child development is associated with positive parenting styles and less perceived parental stress. These results support the importance of parent education to improve knowledge of child development.

Learning Objectives:

• To increase the understanding of the relationship between parental knowledge of early child development and perceived parental stress.
• To investigate the association between knowledge of parental early child development and parenting styles.

Keywords: Child Health Promotion, Caregivers

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Not Answered