Mothers report more child-rearing disagreements following early brain injury than do fathers.

Abstract

Objective To investigate differences between mother’s and father’s perceptions of marital relationship quality, child rearing disagreements, and family functioning over the initial 18 months following traumatic brain injury (TBI) in early childhood relative to an orthopedic-injury comparison group. Methods Participants included 147 parent-dyads of children with TBI (n = 53) and orthopedic injuries (OI; n = 94) who were between the ages of 3 and 7 years at injury. Family functioning, marital quality, and child-rearing disagreements were assessed shortly after injury and at 6, 12, and 18-month follow-ups, with ratings at the initial assessment completed to reflect preinjury functioning. Mixed model analyses were used to examine mother and father’s reports of family functioning, marital quality, and child-rearing disagreements over time as a function of injury severity and parent gender. Results We found a significant Group x Gender interaction for ratings of love and parenting disagreements. As hypothesized, mothers of children with severe TBI rated the relationship as significantly less loving than did their partners, and mothers of children with both moderate and severe TBI endorsed more parenting disagreements than did their partners. However, fathers reported higher levels of family dysfunction than their partners, regardless of injury type or severity. Conclusions Implications for treatment based on differences in mothers’ and fathers’ perceptions of family and marital functioning, and future directions for research, are discussed.

The impact of pediatric traumatic brain injury (TBI) on family functioning: A systematic review

“…As shown in Table 1, most studies defined the child's TBI based on the Glasgow Coma Scale (GCS) [26]. Six study samples included children and their caregivers [10,17,19,20,22,27], one study sampled mothers and fathers [14], one study reported information from mothers only [28], and one study sampled parents and siblings [29]. Across the studies, the child's mean age ranged from 5 years to 14 years; in three studies, the child's age was older -between 12 [19,20] and 14 years [29].…”

“…Across the studies, the child's mean age ranged from 5 years to 14 years; in three studies, the child's age was older -between 12 [19,20] and 14 years [29]. In four studies, age at injury was reported to be between 5 to 5.9 years for all study groups [14,22,27,28], and in two studies, the age at injury was reported to be between 9 years to 10 years [10,15]. All studies included in the review reported family income while only 6 studies reported parental edu- Table 1 Study and sample characteristics…”

“…Parent participants (n) Traumatic brain injury (TBI) Child TBI (n) Definition Bendikas (2011) [27] Parent dyads (n = 147) Severe (n = 14) Mild/Moderate (n = 39)…”

“…cation [14,19,20,22,27,28]. All 9 studies classified the child's TBI as severe, moderate or mild with the exception of one study that grouped mild and moderate TBI together [27].…”

“…All 9 studies classified the child's TBI as severe, moderate or mild with the exception of one study that grouped mild and moderate TBI together [27]. The study conducted by Bendikas et al [27] combined the mild and moderate classifications together and we included this group in the review under moderate TBI findings. A summary of study sample demographics can be found in Table 2.…”