Premium
An Exploratory Study of Maternal Depressive Symptoms and Infant's Social Skills in Korea: The Mediating Role of Mothers’ Social Interactions with their Infants
Author(s) -
Choi Eunsil
Publication year - 2013
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.21397
Subject(s) - association (psychology) , developmental psychology , social skills , psychology , structural equation modeling , exploratory analysis , depressive symptoms , social support , clinical psychology , social relation , medicine , psychiatry , cognition , statistics , mathematics , data science , computer science , psychotherapist , social psychology
The purpose of this study is to examine the potential mediating role of mothers’ social interactions with their infants in the association between maternal depressive symptoms (MDSs) at three time points and infants’ social skills in Korea. Data were taken from 1,472 infants and mothers of the Public Study of Korean Children. Mothers completed the Kessler 6 to examine MDSs at three time points. Mothers also completed the Parenting Style Questionnaires to assess infants’ social skills. Correlational analyses revealed that mothers who had depressive symptons when infants were 4 months of age were less likely to be responsive and sensitive when mothers interacted with their infants. In addition, sensitive and responsive interactions with their infants were positively correlated with infants’ social skills. Structural equation model analyses showed that mothers’ responsive and sensitive interactions with their infants entirely mediated the association between MDSs at 4 months’ postpartum and infants’ social skills. The findings suggest that the mediating role of sensitive and responsive interactions with their infants in the association betweemn MDSs and infants’ social skills is potentially similar in Asian samples.