Parental reflective functioning refers to the parents' ability to reflect on their children's mental states, and is increasingly considered to be a key feature of competent parenting. However, to date, no study has empirically investigated this assumption. The main objective of the present study was therefore to investigate the mediating role of parental competence in the relationship between parental reflective functioning and children's socioemotional adjustment. We also investigated whether these relationships were similar for mothers and fathers. The study was carried out in a sample of 433 mothers and 113 fathers of infants aged from 2 to 36 months. Participants had to complete the Spanish version of the Perceived Parental Competence Scale, the Parental Reflective Functioning Questionnaire and the Ages & Stages Questionnaire. Resultsshowed, as expected, that parental competence mediated the association between parental reflective functioning and infants' emotional adjustment. Multigroup analysis supported the invariance of the structural model across mothers and fathers. The implications of these results for pediatric and primary care are discussed.

IntroductionParents' perception that their child may be vulnerable to serious life-threatening illnesses can have negative effects on how they exercise their parenting. No studies have yet been carried out on parent´s perception of their child’s vulnerability, when the child has not suffered a severe illness. This study tries to analyze the relationship between parent´s perception of their children´s vulnerability and parental competence, and analyzes the mediating role of postnatal depression and parental stress.MethodThe study was carried out on mothers and fathers of full-term infants who did not have any serious illnesses. A total of 965 people (385 fathers and 580 mothers) participated in the study.ResultsThe results revealed an association between parental perception of their child’s vulnerability and parent’s perception of parental competence through depression and parental stress. However, this association was different for fathers and mothers.ConclusionThe variable of perception of child’s vulnerability was a relevant factor to understand parental competence.

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Hasta la fecha, no existen instrumentos de autoinforme para evaluar la función reflexiva parental en lengua española. Por ello, el principal objetivo del presente estudio es analizar la estructura factorial y las propiedades psicométricas del Cuestionario de Función Reflexiva Parental (CFRP-18) en padres (n=113) y madres (n=433) de habla hispana de bebés entre 0 a 3 años. La media de edad de los padres fue 37.85 (DT=3.96) y la de las madres 36.15 (DT=4.19). Asimismo, se analiza la asociación entre las dimensiones del CFRP-18 y las características sociodemográficas de los progenitores. Como objetivo secundario, se analiza la invarianza factorial del CFRP-18 en madres y padres. El análisis factorial confirmatorio mostró un adecuado ajuste a los datos, aportando evidencia de la utilidad del CFRP-18 para evaluar el funcionamiento reflexivo parental. Este estudio aporta datos preliminares de la invariancia del CFRP-18.

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