The association between parental personal/marital adjustment and parent-child interactions in a clinic sample

Abstract

The purpose of the present study was to examine the relative and additive effects of two variables, depression and marital adjustment, on three aspects of the relationship of mothers and their clinic-referred children: parent behavior, child behavior and parent perceptions of child adjustment. Mother-child pairs were assigned to one of four groups based on their scores on the Marital Adjustment Test (MAT) and the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI): high MAT, high BDI; high MAT, low BDI: low MAT, high BDI; and low MAT, low BDI, Parent and child behavior was coded during home observations and parents completed a questionnaire concerning their perceptions of the child's adjustment. The results indicated that marital satisfaction was related to child and parent behavior, whereas depression was related to the perceptual measure. The two factors did not interact upon any of the dependent variables. The importance of the findings and the implications for parent training are discussed.