PhD Scientific Days 2026

Poster Session 2.K - Mental Health Sciences

Parenting Behavior Domain Profiles and Their Association with Perceived Early Childhood Emotional and Behavioral Difficulties

Name of the presenter

Durányik, Réka

Institute/workplace of the presenter

Doctoral College of Semmelweis University, Mental Health Sciences Division, Interdisciplinary Social Sciences Doctoral Program; Budapest, Hungary

Authors

Réka Durányik^1,2, Ildikó Danis, PhD³
1: Doctoral College of Semmelweis University, Mental Health Sciences Division, Interdisciplinary Social Sciences Doctoral Program
2: Psychology Institute, Developmental Psychology Department Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, Károli Gáspár University of the Reformed Church in Hungary
3: Semmelweis University, Institute of Mental Health

Text of the abstract

Introduction: Early childhood is a critically important period in lifelong development, during which parenting practices and the parent–child relationship exert a fundamental influence on developmental outcomes. Contemporary theoretical frameworks have identified multiple distinct domains of parenting behavior, which may manifest in varying constellations depending on child and parent characteristics, embedded within broader social and cultural contexts, each differently supporting children's cognitive, emotional, and social development.
Aims: To identify prevailing parenting profiles and examine their associations with indicators of emotional and behavioral difficulties in early childhood as reported by parents.
Methods: The ECSA (Gleason et al., 2010) detects externalizing, internalizing, regulatory, developmental, and relational problems; the CECPAQ (Verhoeven et al., 2017) measures parenting behaviors. Both questionnaires were administered within the Infancy in 21st Century Hungary project (Danis et al., 2020). Data were collected from mothers of children aged 3–36 months in two nationally representative cohorts (2019–2020, n=980; 2023–2024, n=415).
Results: Factor structure, psychometric properties and construct validity of the ECSA and CECPAQ were tested, and we examined and compared the distributions of aggregated scores in the two waves. In our poster, we present the findings on the associations between clusters of parental behavior and mental health in early childhood.
Conclusion: It is essential for planning interventions that we obtain a nuanced and accurate picture of parental behavior and clearly understand its potential impact on early childhood mental health.
Funding: The two waves of the data collection were supported by an EU co-funded Semmelweis University project (EFOP-3.4.3-16-2016-00007) and by the STIA-KFI-2022 Grant Fund of the Semmelweis University.

Keywords: parenting domains, early childhood, emotional and behavioral problems, ECSA, CECPAQ