Author ORCID Identifier

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2985-1824

Semester

Spring

Date of Graduation

2024

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Type

PhD

College

Eberly College of Arts and Sciences

Department

Psychology

Committee Chair

Cheryl B. McNeil

Committee Co-Chair

Elisa Krackow

Committee Member

Christina Duncan

Committee Member

Kathryn Kestner

Committee Member

Christa Lilly

Abstract

Child abuse is a significant public health concern that impacts children worldwide. Efforts to connect at-risk parents with prevention and intervention programs require the use of high-quality measures that evaluate child abuse potential. Researchers frequently use the Child Abuse Potential Inventory (Milner, 1986) and the Brief Child Abuse Potential Inventory (BCAP; Ondersma et al., 2005) which contain Validity indices that evaluate response patterns such as social desirability responding. The measure developers recommended that abuse risk scores from invalid profiles be disregarded in clinical and research settings; however, little is known about factors that may relate to invalid responses and whether these validity scales may aid in the identification of high-risk parents. Using a sample of 90 mothers and their toddler-aged children clinically referred for child behavior problems, the current study investigated factors that determined the likelihood of participants having an invalid profile on the BCAP. Results indicated that greater parental emotion dysregulation (χ2(1) = 16.117, p < .001), parental stress (χ2(1) = 13.453, p < .001), parental depressive symptoms (χ2(1) = 5.889, p = .015), and observed negative parenting behaviors (χ2(1) = 3.875, p = .049) were related to increased odds of having an invalid BCAP profile. Further, parents with invalid BCAP profiles experienced less improvement from pre- to post-treatment in observed negative parenting behaviors (F(1) = 4.279, p = .044, η2p = .076). These findings suggest that parents with invalid BCAP profiles may be a high-risk subset of parents that should be thoughtfully evaluated for child abuse potential. As parents with invalid BCAP profiles have historically been overlooked within the extant literature, findings from the current research may help to inform best practices and enhance accuracy in parenting evaluations for child abuse risk across clinical and research contexts.

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