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Abstract
The role of parental attributions in parenting interventions has been a subject of interest in attempts to optimise outcomes in treatments for children with conduct problems. Despite this, parenting interventions generally do not provide components that explicitly target or focus on changing problematic parental attributions. This thesis asks, ‘Should parental attributions be included into best practice interventions?’ by examining the role of parental attributions in parent training and its relation to treatment outcomes.
Study 1 focused on methods for reliably measuring parental attributions to determine how prevalent they are in families attending parenting training for conduct problems. A psychometric analysis of a new self-report measure for negative parental attributions indicated that a general factor consisting of Intentionality, Permanence, and Disposition attribution dimensions reliably measure negative parental attributions. Distribution characteristics of the measure indicate that parents who attend parent training generally report low levels of negative parental attributions.
Study 2 examined whether pre-treatment and/or pre- to post-treatment changes in negative parental attributions uniquely predict child behaviour outcomes. Both parents’ pre-treatment parental attributions uniquely predicted worse child behaviour outcomes. However, significant reductions in negative parental attributions were recorded at post-treatment for both parents; of which, smaller improvements in mothers’ negative attributions uniquely predicted subsequent child behaviour outcomes. This result was not replicated for fathers.
Study 3 conducted a mediation analysis to study how parental attributions influence outcomes. Putative mediators included treatment engagement (early cessation, number of sessions, treatment adherence) and parental factors (use of harsh discipline, negative parental feelings, parental depression). Partial mediation was found for negative parental feelings. Greater number of sessions was also a partial mediator; however, it reduced the effects of negative parental attributions on outcomes. No evidence of mediation was found for early cessation, treatment adherence, harsh discipline, and parental depression.
Taken together, the results support focussing on parental attributions for a subset of high-risk families to maximise treatment outcomes. It suggests that motivation to do so includes improving parent-child relationships alongside parenting change to maximise treatment success. Implications for clinical processes on how this can be done are discussed.