Association between parental alexithymic traits and self-reported postnatal reflective functioning in a birth cohort population. Findings from the FinnBrain Birth Cohort Study
Association between parental alexithymic traits and self-reported postnatal reflective functioning in a birth cohort population. Findings from the FinnBrain Birth Cohort Study
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DOI：
10.1016/j.psychres.2020.112869
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发表时间：
2020-04-01
影响因子：
11.3
通讯作者：
Karukivi, Max
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Ahrnberg, Hanna;Pajulo, Marjukka;Karukivi, Max
父母反思功能（Parental reflective functioning，PRF）是指父母从早期开始就努力将自己的孩子视为一个独立的个体，并对孩子自己的想法和感受感到好奇。父母教养能力受父母情绪调节和情绪可用性的影响。述情障碍作为一种具有情感缺陷和想象力差的人格结构，也可能影响PRF，但对父母述情障碍的研究仍然很少。本研究的目的是探讨父母述情特质和PRF之间的关联，迄今尚未探讨。由于大多数育儿研究只关注母亲，因此另一个目的是也研究父亲。作为FinnBrain出生队列研究的一部分，1882名母亲和994名父亲在产后6个月时填写了20项多伦多述情障碍量表（TAS-20）和14项父母反思功能问卷（PRQ-Fi）。TAS-20总分与PRIS-Fi总分之间存在显著的负相关，主要的述情障碍维度是外向性思维。结果表明，述情特质确实与父母的反思功能有关，但这种关系的方向还需要更多的研究来探索。
Parental reflective functioning (PRF) refers to a parent's effort to see his/her child as a separate individual person from early on, and to be curious of the child's own thoughts and feelings. Parenting abilities are affected by the parent's emotion regulation and emotional availability. Alexithymia as a personality construct with emotional deficits and poor imagination could potentially affect also PRF, but studies on parental alexithymia are still scarce. The aim of the present study was to examine the association between parental alexithymic traits and PRF, which to date has not been explored. As most of the parenting research concern only mothers, an additional aim was to study also fathers. The 20-item Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS-20) and the 14-item Parental Reflective Functioning Questionnaire (PRFQ-Fi) were filled by 1882 mothers and 994 fathers at six months postpartum as part of the FinnBrain Birth Cohort Study. A significant negative association between TAS-20 total score and PRFQ-Fi total score among both genders was found. The main alexithymia dimension responsible for this association was Externally Oriented Thinking. The results suggest that alexithymic traits indeed are related to parental reflective functioning, but more studies are needed to explore the direction of this relation.