Disinhibited Attachment Behavior Among Infants Reared at Home: Relations to Maternal Severe Mental Illness and Personality Disorder Symptoms

Publikation: Bidrag til tidsskriftTidsskriftartikelForskningfagfællebedømt

Disinhibited attachment behavior (DAB) among infants is persistent and associated with behavioral and relational problems throughout childhood and adolescence. Little is known about risk factors for DAB among infants reared at home, although studies have linked DAB with maternal psychiatric hospitalization and maternal borderline personality disorder. The aim of the current study was to further assess the association between DAB, maternal severe mental illness (SMI; schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and depression), and maternal PD symptoms. Ninety-three mothers and their infants participated in the study: 46.2% with SMI and 53.8% with no-diagnosis. During pregnancy, mothers were assessed on the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-5 and the Standardized Assessment of Personality Abbreviated Scale a validated measure of personality disorder (PD) symptoms. Infants were assessed for DAB at 1 year of age using the rating of infant stranger engagement, assessed during the strange situation procedure. Infants of mothers with clinical levels of PD symptoms were significantly more likely to display DAB (OR = 3.44) compared to infants of mothers without clinical levels of PD symptoms. Maternal SMI was not significantly associated with infant DAB. Because most mothers with clinical levels of PD symptoms also had comorbid diagnoses in this study, further work is needed to evaluate the role of comorbidity. These results add to the emerging literature indicating that maternal personality symptoms may be a risk factor for indiscriminate forms of attachment behavior among home-reared infants.

OriginalsprogEngelsk
TidsskriftPersonality Disorders: Theory, Research, and Treatment
ISSN1949-2715
DOI
StatusAccepteret/In press - 2024

Bibliografisk note

Funding Information:
The Danish part of the WARM study (Harder et al., 2015) received funding from the Danish Council for Independent Research, Humanities (FKK, Grant Reference DFF-1319-00103), the Psychiatric Research Foundation in the Region of Southern Denmark, and the Health Foundation of Region Zealand. Sofie Stender received funding from Tømrermester Jørgen Holm og Hustru Elisa. F. Hansen’s Mindelegat. The funding sources did not play any role in the collection, analysis, or interpretation of the data. The authors wish to thank the participants, the Obstetric-Gynecological wards; Region Zealand, Region Southern Denmark, and the Capital Region in Denmark, and Psychiatry, Region Zealand, as well as R. A. Carstensen, K. Røhder, E. Nayberg, M. Nyström-Hansen, C. H. Trier, and K. I. Karstoft for their study contributions. The authors have no conflicts of interest to declare.

Publisher Copyright:
© 2024 American Psychological Association

ID: 390242750