Abstract
Parental efficacy is an important aspect of parenting and a key outcome in many parenting programs. However, most studies focus on mothers, and less is known about the relationship between coparents' parental efficacy over time following intervention, and how parental distress can impact parental efficacy. The current study (N = 271 heterosexual couples; 162 intervention and 109 control) used a dyadic latent growth model to explore the dependence structure of parental efficacy between couples 2 years after assignment to a military parenting program, After Deployment, Adaptive Parenting Tools or a control condition. Results revealed a significant intervention effect, with both mothers and fathers in the intervention group exhibiting quadratic changes over 2 years, while the control group remained relatively stable. Notably, mothers' baseline emotional distress and fathers' deployment length emerged as predictors in understanding parental efficacy improvement over time. This research underscores the importance of adopting a family systems perspective and considering emotional distress and environmental stressors in designing targeted interventions to support military families and enhance overall well-being.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 958-978 |
| Number of pages | 21 |
| Journal | Journal of Marital and Family Therapy |
| Volume | 49 |
| Issue number | 4 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Oct 2023 |
Bibliographical note
Publisher Copyright:© 2023 The Authors. Journal of Marital and Family Therapy published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy.
Keywords
- deployment
- dyadic latent growth model
- emotional distress
- military family
- parental efficacy
- parenting program