Father Involvement in Infant Parenting in an Ethnically Diverse Community Sample: Predicting Paternal Depressive Symptoms.

Early paternal involvement in infant care is beneficial to child and maternal health, and possibly for paternal mental health. The purpose of the present study was to examine the relationship between fathers' involvement in early infant parenting and their depressive symptoms during the infant's first year in a sample of 881 low-income Black, Hispanic, and White fathers recruited from five sites in the United States (urban, mixed urban/suburban, rural). Home interviews at 1 month after birth assessed three concepts based on prior research and community input: (1) time spent with the infant, (2) parenting self-efficacy, (3) material support for the baby. Paternal depressive symptoms at 1, 6, and 12 months after the birth of a child were assessed with the Edinburgh Postpartum Depression Scale. Generalized estimating equations tested whether the three indicators of father involvement at 1 month after birth predicted lower subsequent paternal depressive symptoms controlling for social and demographic variables. For fathers, greater time spent with the infant, parenting self-efficacy, and material support were all significantly associated with lower paternal depressive symptoms during the first year. When risk of depression (scores > 9) was examined, only parenting self-efficacy among fathers was associated with higher likelihood of clinical depression. Findings have implications for future research on mechanisms linking paternal involvement and paternal mental health, and for possible paid paternal leave policies in the future.

Fathers' Dosage in Community-based Programs for Low-income Fathers.

Community-based programs for low-income fathers often struggle to get fathers to attend services and activities. This paper reviews the literature examining approaches to measuring dosage in fatherhood programs, rates of dosage, influences on dosage, and the associations between dosage and fathers' outcomes. Studies were limited to programs that conducted randomized control trials, quasi-experimental studies, and one-group pretest/post-test designs. Although most programs report low or moderate dosage levels, some programs achieve high levels of fathers' participation in parenting, coparenting, and economic security classes. Few studies examined dosage in relation to father outcomes. All but one of seven studies reporting effects showed that higher dose levels had positive associations with outcomes such as engagement with children, parenting satisfaction and self-efficacy, perception of coparenting quality, payment of child support, and earnings from work. This paper discusses future directions for studying father's dosage in fatherhood programs.

En los programas comunitarios para padres de bajos recursos generalmente es difícil lograr que los padres asistan a los servicios y a las actividades que ofrecen. Este artículo revisa los métodos de análisis de las publicaciones para medir la cantidad de padres en los programas sobre paternidad, los índices de asistencia, las influencias en la asistencia y las asociaciones entre la asistencia y las respuestas de los padres. Los estudios se limitaron a los programas que llevaron a cabo ensayos controlados aleatorizados, estudios cuasiexperimentales y diseños de pruebas de entrada y pruebas de salida de un grupo. Aunque la mayoría de los programas informan niveles de asistencia bajos o moderados, algunos programas logran altos niveles de participación de los padres en las clases sobre crianza, cocrianza y seguridad económica de los niños. Pocos estudios analizaron la asistencia en relación con las respuestas de los padres. Todos excepto uno de siete estudios que informaron efectos indicaron que los niveles más altos de asistencia tuvieron asociaciones positivas con las respuestas de los padres, como compromiso con los niños, satisfacción con la crianza y autoeficacia, percepción de la calidad de la cocrianza, pago de la cuota alimentaria e ingresos de un trabajo. En este artículo se debaten las futuras direcciones para estudiar la asistencia de los padres en los programas sobre paternidad.

Self-perceived Coparenting of Nonresident Fathers: Scale Development and Validation.

This study reports on the development and validation of the Fatherhood Research and Practice Network coparenting perceptions scale for nonresident fathers. Although other measures of coparenting have been developed, this is the first measure developed specifically for low-income, nonresident fathers. Focus groups were conducted to determine various aspects of coparenting. Based on this, a scale was created and administered to 542 nonresident fathers. Participants also responded to items used to examine convergent and predictive validity (i.e., parental responsibility, contact with the mother, father self-efficacy and satisfaction, child behavior problems, and contact and engagement with the child). Factor analyses and reliability tests revealed three distinct and reliable perceived coparenting factors: undermining, alliance, and gatekeeping. Validity tests suggest substantial overlap between the undermining and alliance factors, though undermining was uniquely related to child behavior problems. The alliance and gatekeeping factors showed strong convergent validity and evidence for predictive validity. Taken together, results suggest this relatively short measure (11 items) taps into three coparenting dimensions significantly predictive of aspects of individual and family life.