Parenting at Risk: Executive Functions and Quality of Mother-child Interactions in Subjects with Substance Use Disorder

Throughout the first two decades of life, parents feed, clothe, nurture and educate their child while also determining where they live, what they learn, with whom they may associate and thus greatly impact the development of their personality. In order to carry-out adequate parenting extensive evidence demonstrates the importance of parental neuropsychological functioning and psychological well-being. Therefore, parental Substance Use Disorder (SUD) is considered a risk condition within the domain of parenting as it inhibits both psychological and cognitive health. Concurring to the literature, the disciplinary approach undertaken by mothers with SUD has been associated to a widespread array of deficits, involving neglect, emotional and physical abuse, excessive control and punishment, lack of emotional involvement and inconsistent discipline. Despite research indicating that parenting skills are associated to psychological well-being and neuropsychological functioning, prior studies have not yet examined the associations between these areas of parental functioning and the quality of parent-child interactions within disciplinary contexts. Therefore, the present study aims to investigate the influence of the neuropsychological functioning of a sample of mothers diagnosed with SUD upon their parenting behaviours within disciplinary contexts. Chapter 1, after a brief introduction to the construct of parenting, will present the associations between core parenting domains, such as sensitivity and discipline, and parental executive functioning and how the latter influences parenting behaviours. Chapter 2 will outline how maternal substance use disorder is a risk factor within the domain of parenting, in particular how substance abuse affects one’s cognition and rearing capabilities, with reference to maternal sensitivity, discipline strategies and the impact of SUD upon parental executive functioning. Chapter 3 describes the methodology employed in order to conduct the present study. In summary, forty-one mothers, of which 19 with SUD and 22 low-risk, were assessed in interaction with their children within a structured disciplinary setting, as well as with respect to their neuropsychological functioning. These domains were respectively evaluated via the employment of the Emotional Availability Scales (EAS) and neuropsychological tests. Moreover, descriptive analysis, Mann-Whitney U test and the Spearman correlation coefficient were applied in order to analyze the collected data. Chapter 4 will outline the present research results. Surprisingly, these demonstrate the absence of a statistically significant difference in the mothers’ neuropsychological functioning between the clinical and control group. Moreover, as expected, mothers diagnosed with SUD demonstrate inferior emotional availability compared to the low-risk population. Finally, with regard to the clinical group, the correlational analysis between the mothers’ neuropsychological functioning and the quality of mother-child interactions, reveal an association between the mother’s working memory and non-intrusive behaviours. Whereas, with regard to cognitive flexibility, a positive correlation between appropriate perseverative behaviours and adequate parental qualities such as sensitivity, structuring, as well as child responsiveness was found. Finally, a positive correlation also rose with regard to perseverative errors and the child’s responsiveness and involvement within the interaction. Lastly, Chapter 5 will present the conclusive discussion with regard to the results obtained from the present study, particularly with reference to the research hypothesis and the evidence within the existing literature. Research limitations and further directions for future research are also discussed.