Usman Zaheer (MPhil, 2016-2018) Supervisor: Rafia Rafique, PhD
Early childhood development is linked with and inseparable from mothers’ mental health. The current study was designed to investigate the relationship between mothers’ mental health and early childhood development of their children. It was hypothesized that mothers’ mental health would be positively related to the early childhood development. Furthermore it was hypothesized that mothers’ mental health would be positively related to the mental health of their children. Correlational research design was used to examine the proposed hypotheses. The sample of this study was drawn conveniently and comprised of (N = 105) mothers with an age range of 19 to 40 years (M = 27.15 years, SD = 4.40) and (N = 105) children (male = 52, female = 53) with the age range of 5 to 36 month (M = 13.23, SD = 7.53) from different rural health centers situated in the city of Lahore. In order to measure the constructs under study, Mental Health Scale (Beusenbergand & Orley, 1994) and Caregiver Reported Early Development Index (McCoy, 2016) Scale were used. Data were analyzed through descriptive statistics, Pearson product moment correlation and hierarchical regression analyses. Results indicated that there was a significant positive relationship between mothers’ mental health and early childhood development and mental health of their children. Mothers’ mental health significantly predicted early childhood development and mental health of their children. This research will help in laying early foundations for both parents and children, and focus on good mental health of mothers can help improve early childhood development of their children.
Keywords: Mental health, early childhood development.
