Quality of parent-child relationships in autobiographical narratives in relation to risk behaviors, domestic coercion, and coping strategies in HIV+ and HIV- mothers

Goals: Describe correlation between parent-child relationship quality and risk behaviors, domestic coercion, and coping strategies of women with and at risk for HIV.

Methods: 100 mothers (67% HIV+, 33% HIV-; 92% African American, mean age 44 years) from the Chicago Women’s Interagency HIV Study narrated 3 life turning points.  Inductive and deductive methods were used to identify parent-child themes.  Narratives were reliably coded for parent-child relationship quality (global judgment across good/poor communication, positive/negative feelings, caring/lack of care); risk behaviors (e.g., unsafe sex, substance use); and coping strategies (e.g., self-blame). History of substance abuse and domestic coercion were via self-report. . 

Results:  Identified themes included care/lack of care for children, children motivating positive life changes, pride in children, mothers’ repeating/compensating for previous negative relationships and children as a source of stress.  No HIV serostatus differences were noted.  Controlling for education, income, age, and narrative word count, partial correlations indicated that positive parent-child relationships related to lower risk behaviors (e.g., unsafe sex, r=-.33, p=.001, multiple partners, r=-.23, p=.034, illegal drug use, r=-.21, p=.037); more positive coping (e.g., positive reflection on past experiences, r=.21, p=.04); less negative coping (e.g., self-blame, r=-.32, p=.002, pessimism, r =  -.20, p = .05); lower self-reported crack/cocaine/heroin use (r=-.35, p<.001) and less domestic coercion (r=-.22, p=.035).

Conclusions:  Positive parent-child relationships relate to positive coping, fewer risk behaviors, and less domestic coercion for women with and at risk for HIV. Future research should focus on directionality among these factors.