Citation

Muir RC, Monaghan SM, Gilmore RJ, Clarkson JE, Crooks TJ, Egan TG. Aust. N. Zeal. J. Psychiatry 1989; 23(2): 255-260.

Affiliation

Department of Child Psychiatry, University of Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1989, Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists, Publisher SAGE Publishing)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

2775111

Abstract

We describe the three stages of our attempt to predict parenting problems and child abuse antenatally. In the first stage, we made an intuitive check list of ten items from 173 risk factors drawn from the literature. The check list was useful in predicting who would relinquish care or have major parenting difficulty in two different samples drawn four years apart and before and after some major sociocultural changes in New Zealand. In the second stage we used statistical techniques rather than intuition to maximise the predictive ability of the checklist and produced a new one of 9 items. In the third stage we validated the new list in a random sample of pregnant mothers. It was effective in predicting parenting difficulty in the 2 years after childbirth. We recommend it for routine use in a New Zealand setting. We do not know how useful the checklist will be in other cultural settings.

Language: en