Effects of sexual abuse and cultural coping on African American parent-child relationships: Implications for intervention

Few studies have been conducted to determine relationships between maternal childhood sexual abuse (CSA) history and parenting practices. Furthermore, no studies have attempted to understand how cultural coping methods dynamically impact the relationship between maternal CSA history and parenting outcomes. The purpose of this study is to understand if maternal coping mediates the relation between maternal CSA history and mother-daughter relational outcomes in a sample of African American mothers. The Strong Black Woman (SBW) Cultural Coping Scale, which consists of caretaking, affect regulation, and self-reliance factors, was used to represent maternal coping, and the Parent-Child Relationship Questionnaire (PCRQ) was used to assess warmth, personal relationship, possessiveness, and power assertion. Results showed that maternal CSA history was significantly related to SBW Cultural Coping total scores in the positive direction (i.e., mothers with CSA history reported higher scores). Mediation and indirect effects analyses revealed maternal CSA history was associated with mother-daughter possessiveness and power assertion through SBW Cultural Coping total scores. Additional analyses revealed a significant relation between maternal CSA history and subscales of the SBW, specifically caretaking and self-reliance. The mediational analyses, utilizing SBW subscale scores, revealed significant relations between maternal CSA and maternal warmth in the inverse direction via SBW caretaking, CSA and possessiveness in the positive direction via SBW self-reliance, and CSA and power assertion in the positive direction via both SBW caretaking and self-reliance factors. The results of this study highlight that specific types of trauma (i.e., CSA) can have significant implications for familial functioning within minority populations based on culturally-driven coping.;Index words. African American, Families, Childhood sexual abuse, Coping, Strong Black woman, Parenting.