Maternal medical conditions and parenting styles as determinants of child emotional, developmental, and growth outcomes: A community-based pilot study in urban slum areas

Abstract

Children living in urban slums are exposed to intersecting biological and psychosocial vulnerabilities, yet the relative roles of maternal health and parenting in child development remain unclear. This study aimed to examine correlations of maternal health characteristics and parenting styles with child developmental, emotional-behavioral, and nutritional measures and to explore their structural relationships. A community-based cross-sectional pilot study was conducted among mother–child dyads in West Jakarta, Indonesia. Child measures included the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ), Pre-Screening Developmental Questionnaire (PDQ), and nutritional-status deviation. Maternal health characteristics included blood pressure, anthropometry, body composition, hemoglobin, fasting blood glucose, uric acid, and lipid profiles. Parenting styles were assessed using the Parenting Styles and Dimensions Questionnaire (PSDQ). Spearman’s rank correlation and Partial Least Squares–Structural Equation Modeling were applied. Permissive parenting was negatively correlated with hyperactivity (r=−0.260; p<0.05), while no significant correlations were observed for authoritarian or authoritative parenting. Developmental-deficit scores were positively correlated with several maternal measures, including systolic blood pressure (r=0.401; p<0.01), body weight (r=0.340; p<0.01), fasting blood glucose (r=0.356; p<0.01), and triglycerides (r=0.299; p<0.05), and negatively correlated with high-density lipoprotein (r=−0.413; p<0.01). Maternal hemoglobin was negatively correlated with emotional-problem scores (r=−0.263; p<0.05). The PLS-SEM models explained 25.2–29.6% of the variance in SDQ scores and 23.3–26.0% in PDQ developmental-deficit scores, with maternal health-related pathways showing greater consistency across models than parenting-related pathways. Maternal health characteristics were more consistently related to child developmental and emotional-behavioral measures than parenting styles in this urban-slum population. These findings support further longitudinal studies integrating maternal health and parenting factors.