Quality of Interactions, Children’s Psychological Adjustment and Parental Stress in Foster Families: the Mediating Role of Parental Sense of Competence

Abstract

Foster children’s emotional and behavioral difficulties are often a challenge for foster caregivers, who may experience reduced feelings of competence in their parental role, as well as increased levels of parental stress. In turn, these difficulties can negatively affect the quality of the interactions between them. In the present work, our first objective was to analyze the quality of the interactions between 49 Spanish foster children aged 4–9 years and their main caregivers, and its relationship with some variables, which were studied as potential predictors: the caregivers’ parental stress and sense of competence, the children’s psychological adjustment difficulties, and the children and caregivers’ socio-demographic profile. We assessed caregiver-child interactions using an observational task (Co-Construction Task). The caregivers completed standardized questionnaires regarding their parental stress (Parenting Stress Index-Short Form; PSI-SF), parental sense of competence (Parenting Sense of Competence Scale; PSOC), and foster children’s psychological adjustment difficulties (Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire; SDQ). Also, we obtained their socio-demographic information through the families’ caseworkers. The second objective was to examine whether caregivers’ parental sense of competence mediated the relationship between children’s psychological adjustment difficulties and caregivers’ parental stress. Results concerning our first objective showed that caregivers’ parental stress and children’s age were significant predictors of the quality of caregiver-child interactions. As for the second objective, our mediation model indicated that parental sense of competence partially mediated the relationship between children’s psychological adjustment difficulties and caregivers’ parental stress. Lastly, we comment on some practical implications based on our results, which point to the need to include both self-report and observational measures when assessing and intervening with foster families.