NCJ Number
202548
Journal
Child Abuse & Neglect Volume: 25 Issue: 11 Dated: November 2001 Pages: 1481-1495
Date Published
November 2001
Length
15 pages
Annotation
This study examined the association of pCAP scores (scores derived from the Child Abuse Potential Inventory) of a sample of expectant adolescent mothers with maternal negative prenatal behaviors and neonatal infant morbidity.
Abstract
The Child Abuse Potential Inventory (pCAP) is a 160-item self-report that evaluates attitudes toward the child and parenting, and it estimates the potential for abusive behaviors toward the child. As the first step in the exploration of the prenatal use of the CAP scale as a potentially useful measure of early maternal attitudes, this study obtained prenatal CAP (pCAP) scores for a sample of 45 poor single adolescents during the second half of their pregnancies. A pediatrician who had no knowledge of the prenatal data reviewed the neonatal records to assess neonatal morbidity. Maternal prenatal records were reviewed for obstetric risk assessment by an obstetrician who was blind to the rest of the data. The relationships among the pCAP scores, prenatal behaviors, and neonatal morbidity were analyzed. The study found that in the prenatal period, the pCAP scores were positively correlated with self-reported prenatal smoking and substance use. The multiple linear regression analysis showed that the pCAP scores significantly contributed to neonatal morbidity independently of obstetric risk factors. CAP scores are thus predictive of some negative prenatal behaviors among poor, single adolescent girls and are also apparently important for predicting neonatal morbidity. Further studies are recommended to validate these findings. 4 tables and 46 references