1. Objectifs

Intentions :
«A first objective of this paper was to contribute to the literature on the link between CM [Child maltreatment] and the development of RF [reflective functioning] among a non-clinical community sample. […] A second objective was to evaluate whether RF mediates the association between CM and psychological symptoms (depressive and post-traumatic stress).» (p. 3)

2. Méthode

Échantillon/Matériau :
L’échantillon (n = 301) est composé de 235 femmes enceintes et de 66 futurs pères. Parmi ces participants, 28,3% (n = 85) ont été exposés à au moins une forme de maltraitance lors de l’enfance. La ville de provenance des participants n’est pas mentionnée dans l’article. La recherche a été conduite par une équipe de l’Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières (Mauricie).

Instruments :
Questionnaires

Type de traitement des données :
Analyse statistique

3. Résumé

Overall, the authors «found confirmation for the theoretical model demonstrating that RF indirectly mediated the association between CM and psychological symptoms and was predictive of parental attitudes during pregnancy.» (p. 6) «The finding that CM is associated with impaired RF is noteworthy considering the inconsistent amount of evidence linking childhood adversity and mentalization in adult samples from the community. Interestingly, CM was particularly associated with hypomentalization and was not significantly predictive of hypermentalization when controlling for sociodemographic risk factors. This suggests that adults with histories of CM are particularly likely to display a general tendency to avoid thinking in mental states terms and to assume that they can’t reasonably know why others and they act in certain ways. [Moreover,] findings suggest that psychopathology may not be the direct consequence of trauma, but a result of not having developed resilience-promoting abilities […]. [Otherwise, post-traumatic stress disorder] was similarly associated with hypermentalization and hypomentalization. [Taken together, these] findings are noteworthy since most studies on the role of RF for sensitive parenting focused on the postnatal period where problems can already be observed in the offspring of parents who experienced CM and have limited RF […].» (p. 7-8)