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Parental involvement in home visiting: Interpersonal predictors and correlates
Author(s) -
Sierau Susan,
Brand Tilman,
Jungmann Tanja
Publication year - 2012
Publication title -
infant mental health journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.693
H-Index - 75
eISSN - 1097-0355
pISSN - 0163-9641
DOI - 10.1002/imhj.21322
Subject(s) - general partnership , interpersonal communication , disadvantaged , psychology , intervention (counseling) , interpersonal relationship , developmental psychology , quality (philosophy) , social psychology , political science , psychiatry , philosophy , epistemology , law
Parents' commitment to and usage of early intervention are key variables in understanding discrepancies in families' susceptibility to these services. Although the important role of fathers in infant development is widely recognized, early interpersonal predictors of paternal involvement in home‐visiting programs have been understudied. This article aims to fill this gap by regressing parents' postnatal involvement on prenatal partnership satisfaction and quality of the helping relationship in a sample of 124 socially and financially disadvantaged families. Paternal program engagement was predicted by partnership satisfaction whereas the perceived quality of the helping relationship best predicted maternal program engagement, with demographical characteristics controlled. Maternal program engagement also mediated the relationship between partnership satisfaction and paternal program engagement. The results are discussed against the theoretical background.