title: What does the NCATS (Nursing Child Assessment Teaching Scale) measure?
abstract: The purpose of this study was to examine what aspects of the mother-child relationship are measured by the Nursing Child Assessment Teaching Scale (NCATS). A racially heterogeneous sample of 128 mothers completed questionnaires measuring maternal depression, parenting self-efficacy, knowledge of developmental and parenting principles, and perceived difficult toddler temperament. Mothers and children were also videotaped during home visits while completing two teaching tasks that were later scored using NCATS. NCATS Parent subscale scores were significantly related to maternal knowledge and education but unrelated to depression and self-efficacy. Child subscale scores were unrelated to all of the study variables, including perceived difficult temperament. Significant differences were noted among African-American, Hispanic, and white mothers. The findings suggest that the NCATS taps cognitive factors more reliably than affective factors underlying the mother-child relationship and the cognitive factors may be culturally biased.
authors.affiliation: Rush-Presbyterian, St. Luke's Medical Center, Chicago, IL 60612.
authors.forename: D
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Gross
authors.forename: B
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Conrad
authors.forename: L
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Fogg
authors.forename: L
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Willis
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Garvey
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000339:Affect; D001741:Black or African American; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D015982:Bias; D002657:Child Development; D002675:Child, Preschool; D003466:Cultural Characteristics; D003866:Depressive Disorder / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000208:ethnology / Q000523:psychology; D004522:Educational Status; D005260:Female; D006630:Hispanic or Latino; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008425:Maternal Behavior; D016389:Maternal-Child Nursing; D009034:Mother-Child Relations; D009035:Mothers / Q000193:education* / Q000523:psychology*; D009730:Nursing Assessment; D015403:Nursing Evaluation Research; D016487:Parenting / Q000208:ethnology / Q000523:psychology*; D011897:Random Allocation; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012494:Sampling Studies; D012649:Self Concept; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D013694:Temperament; D014743:Videotape Recording; D044465:White People