Pathway from Childhood Maltreatment to Perceived Parental Competence and Intimate Partner Violence Among Expecting Fathers: The Role of PTSD Symptoms

ABSTRACT

Men who have a history of childhood maltreatment may be at risk of experiencing significant challenges during the transition to parenthood, which might be explained by the presence of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms. Using a nonclinical community sample of 230 expecting fathers, the aims of the current study were as follows (1) to investigate, during the prenatal period, associations between childhood maltreatment and perceived parental competence as well as between childhood maltreatment and intimate partner violence, and (2) to evaluate whether PTSD symptoms contributed to explaining these associations. A structural equation model showed that the severity of childhood maltreatment predicted more severe PTSD symptoms, which in turn predicted higher levels of intimate partner violence as well as a lower perceived parental competence. No direct associations between childhood maltreatment and both perceived parental competence and intimate partner violence were observed. Implications for interventions and future research are discussed.

KEYWORDS:

• Child abuse and neglect
• childhood trauma
• couple dysfunctions
• fatherhood
• intimate partner violence
• mental health
• post-traumatic stress disorder
• pregnancy

Acknowledgments

The authors wish to thank expecting fathers who participated in our study as well as research coordinators and assistants from the STEP Project (Supporting the Transition to and Engagement in Parenthood) for their contribution to data collection.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/10926771.2024.2338167.

Data availability statement

The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author, NB, upon reasonable request.

Additional information

Funding

The work was supported by the Fonds de recherche du Quebec - Société et Culture [2018-NP-204630], the Canada Research Chairs under grant [950-232739] and the Public Health Agency of Canada [1617-HQ-000015]. First author is a recipient of a Postdoctoral Fellowships from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council [756-2022-0549].