The role of sociodemographic factors in maternal psychological distress and mother-preterm infant interactions.

The analysis was exploratory and did not test whether changing a background factor would improve maternal distress or interaction. Some subgroups were small, especially mothers in the other-race category, so those findings may be unstable. The authors did not control for multiple statistical testing, so some associations may have occurred by chance. Background variables and outcomes had missing data, although imputation and mixed models were used. Home environment and mother-infant interactions were measured only at 2 and 6 months, not at 12 months. Mothers with current major depression, psychosis or bipolar disease were excluded, so the sample does not represent mothers with those conditions. Most mothers were unmarried, Black and first-time mothers, which may limit how far the findings apply to other groups.

The supplied text does not include an author conflict-of-interest declaration. The publication types list NIH extramural research support.

Do not read age, education, marital status, public assistance, infant sex or infant size as causes of distress or as a screening rule. This was an exploratory association study, many results were mixed, and the authors did not control for multiple statistical testing.