THE PARENTAL PROBLEM-SOLVING MEASURE - FURTHER EVALUATION WITH MALTREATING AND NONMALTREATING PARENTS

Inability to solve problems related to parenting and other aspects of daily living is hypothesized to result in frustration or inability to cope, and contribute to the occurrence of problematic parental behavio r such as physical abuse or neglect. The present investigation evaluat ed the Parental Problem-Solving Measure (PPSM), a procedure for measur ing parental problem-solving skill of maltreating and nonmaltreating p arents. Subjects were 60 parents with at least one child between the a ges of 2 and 12. Subjects belonged to one of three groups: (a) physica lly abusive and/or neglectful parents (n = 27); (b) nonmaltreating cli nic parents seeking help for child behavior problems (n = 12); and (c) nonmaltreating, non-help-seeking community parents (n = 21). Results demonstrated the interrater reliability, internal consistency, and tem poral stability of the PPSM and its five subscales. Support is also pr ovided for the convergent and discriminant validity of the measure.