Maternal Sensitivity and Disrupted Caregiving in Mothers with Problematic Substance Use

While the use of maternal sensitivity is empirically and theoretically well-grounded, particularly in research with community samples, the construct of sensitivity may not capture the full range of parenting behaviours that support or hinder social-emotional development in the early years. In particular, disrupted parenting behaviours, including those that a child may perceive as frightening, may not be adequately captured. Understanding the similarity and differences between sensitivity and disrupted caregiving (DC) in mothers at heightened risk for this more atypical caregiving behaviour is important given that patterns of DC can increase risk for child maltreatment. The current study examined maternal sensitivity and DC in (n = 29) mothers with problematic substance use to elucidate the aspects of each construct that overlap (i.e., endpoints of a similar continuum) and the unique variance accounted for by DC. Findings indicated that higher levels of DC were associated with lower levels of sensitivity. However, the correlation was only moderate in strength, leaving a large portion of variance unaccounted for. Further, when socioeconomic stress was controlled for, the association between sensitivity and DC was no longer significant. Similarly, when the relation between sensitivity and DC was examined for low and high DC groups, a significant association was only indicated for the low DC group. Taken together, this suggests that DC and sensitivity are overlapping constructs. However, the strength of their relation appears to decrease at high levels of DC and in the context of heightened socioeconomic stress.