Sunday, 16 January 2005 - 10:15 AM

This presentation is part of: Family Impacts of Poverty

Parental Health Locus of Control and Physical Health Outcomes of Children in Low Socioeconomic Status

Purpose: It has been well documented in child development literature that parental psychological characteristics, such as parenting self-efficacy and locus of control, are associated with the children's behavioral, emotional, and academic outcomes. Furthermore, these characteristics have been shown to mediate the links between low-income and various social and cognitive child outcomes. However, less is known about the associations between parent’s psychological characteristics and children’s physical health outcomes. The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationship between parental health locus of control and children’s physical health outcomes in a sample of low-income families.

Methods: The data, used in this study, are drawn from Illinois Families Study-Child Well-being Supplement (IFS-CWB). The IFS-CWB follows a cohort of 582 children, who were under the age of three in 1998, and whose mothers were receiving Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF) at that time. Children’s health status is assessed using caregiver’s overall assessments of their children’s health and reports of the number of days their children stayed home ill in the past year. Parental health locus of control was measured with the Parental Health Belief Scale (PHBS). Children’s health status was regressed on parental health locus of control, controlling for major demographic characteristics of the caregiver and child, household income, mental and physical health status of the caregiver, child’s health insurance status, and presence of chronic child health conditions.

Results: Results from binary logistic regression and poisson regression analyses show that greater levels of the caregiver’s external locus of control, defined as the degree to which mothers believed “chance” or “powerful others” affect their children’s health, decreased the probability of reporting a child to have excellent or very good physical health, and increased the probability of reporting a greater number of days home sick. Inclusion of maternal health and mental health status, child’s health insurance status, and child’s chronic conditions did not change these effects.

Implications for practice: Findings suggest that professionals need to pay careful attention to parental perception of control over their children’s health. Findings also suggest intervention programs that provide knowledge and strategies for promoting child health and helps parents increase their perceived control over children’s health are needed.

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