Development, preliminary testing and use of the parenting tracking form inperinatal addiction treatment

An instrument for assessing the parent-child relationship over time was dev eloped and tested for clinical application, using a transactional developme nt framework. It was used each month by the primary therapist for each of 1 8 mother-child dyads for a period of 14 months, resulting in 128 incidences of use of the tool. Items are related to the Mental Development Index (MDI ) subscale of the Bayley Scale for Infant Development (BSID). Exploratory f actor analysis to test construct validity yielded three factors that accoun ted for 84.8% of the variance, with factor loadings of .52143 to .78355. Re sults describe the nature of the parenting relationship during addiction re covery for this sample, and indicate the usefulness of this instrument for assessing the nature of the parenting relationship during addiction recover y. Implications for perinatal addiction research and practice include encou raging healthy parent-child interactions that support the continuing develo pment of the child.