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Abstract
The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between medical risk and parenting stress and the extent to which parental self-efficacy moderates the relationship between medical risk, parenting stress, specific parenting behaviors (i.e., parental responsivity, acceptance of child, parental involvement) and the home environment (i.e., organization of environment, learning materials, variety in experience, and IT-HOME total score) of premature children. Participants included 72 parent-child dyads with premature children between the ages of 7 and 35 months corrected age. Measures included parent reports of medical risk, stress, self-efficacy, and the IT-HOME. Results show that medical risk was not significantly related to parenting stress. Analyses indicated that parental self-efficacy influenced the relationship between medical risk and acceptance of child and organization of the environment. Parental self-efficacy was also found to effect the relationship between parenting stress and variety in experience. Implications for early intervention service providers and NICU developmental follow-up programs will be discussed along with limitations and areas for future research.
