Background

Identifying specific mechanisms of risk can help better tailor parenting interventions to different forms of maternal psychopathology. Borderline personality disorder (BPD) symptoms interfere with mentalization and emotion regulation capacities; thus, maternal BPD symptoms may uniquely impact aspects of parenting that draw on these capacities.

Objective

This study examines whether BPD symptoms are independently associated with specific parent–child relatedness factors beyond maternal depressive symptoms, and whether these factors predict subsequent child maladjustment in the context of BPD symptoms.

Method

At two points over one year, a United States community sample of 214 mothers of children aged 3–18 completed self-report measures on parenting and mental health, open-ended questions about parenting experiences, and computerized mentalization tasks. Analyses included partial correlations and regression approaches to mediation and moderation.

Results

Controlling for depression, mothers with more BPD symptoms reacted with greater hostility towards their child, put more blame on their child for misbehavior, and felt more dissatisfaction in the relationship. Maternal BPD symptoms did not directly predict increased child maladjustment but did interact with several parenting measures to predict subsequent child maladjustment. For mothers high in BPD symptoms, negative emotionality associated with parenting and beliefs about children’s negative emotions predicted increased child internalizing and externalizing symptoms at follow-up; these same interactions did not emerge for depressive symptoms.

Conclusions

Results suggest BPD symptoms may be linked to specific types of parenting risks relative to maternal depressive symptoms, and that the meaning of certain parenting risk factors differs depending on BPD symptoms levels.

中文翻译：

---

母亲边缘症状、亲子关系模式和儿童适应不良

背景

识别特定的风险机制有助于更好地针对不同形式的孕产妇精神病理学制定育儿干预措施。边缘型人格障碍 (BPD) 症状会干扰心智化和情绪调节能力；因此，母亲的 BPD 症状可能会独特地影响利用这些能力的育儿方面。

客观的

这项研究检查了 BPD 症状是否与母亲抑郁症状以外的特定亲子相关因素独立相关，以及这些因素是否可以预测在 BPD 症状背景下随后的儿童适应不良。

方法

在一年多的两个时间点，一个由 214 名 3-18 岁儿童母亲组成的美国社区样本完成了关于育儿和心理健康的自我报告测量、关于育儿经历的开放式问题以及计算机化的心理化任务。分析包括偏相关和回归方法来调解和调节。

结果

控制抑郁症后，有更多 BPD 症状的母亲会对孩子产生更大的敌意，将更多的责任归咎于孩子的不当行为，并对这段关系感到更加不满。母亲的 BPD 症状并不能直接预测儿童适应不良的增加，但确实与几种养育措施相互作用以预测随后的儿童适应不良。对于 BPD 症状高的母亲，与养育子女相关的负面情绪和对儿童负面情绪的信念预示着随访时孩子的内化和外化症状会增加；抑郁症状没有出现这些相同的相互作用。

结论

结果表明，BPD 症状可能与特定类型的育儿风险相关，相对于母亲的抑郁症状，某些育儿风险因素的含义因 BPD 症状水平而异。