Características del vínculo (attachment): Estudio comparativo de niños prematuros y niños nacidos a término

Abstract

Considering how important it is to understand the concept of attachment, a number of studies have focused on groups of infants at risk, with regard to their difficulty for interacting with the environment, based on stress or difficult parenthood, or on the problems of the infants themselves or the situation of their upbringing, which makes them more vulnerable and prone to form insecure attachments. This study is based on a sample of preterm infants, which are considered a group at risk in the development of a secure attachment. To assess the attachment, the ASCT (Attachment Story Completion Task) by Bretherton, Ridgeway and Cassidy (1990) was used, codified according to Cartas para completar historias (CCH) by Miljkovitch, R.; Pierrehumbert, B. and others (2003). The attachment representations are studied in a sample of infants of approximately 6 years old, comparing full term and preterm infants. Other elements, in addition to prematurity, will be taken into account, in order to know whether they have an effect on the results, such as biological risk, gender, gestional age and twinhood. Besides, the variables studied: prematurity, biological risk, gender, gestational age and twinhood, will also determine whether they produce an effect on the features of narrative content specified on the CCH scales. We found out that the high-risk group studied (preterm infants 2.500 grs.) As to gender, preterm infants as well as those born full-term are significantly related to higher scores of insecure attachment. Preterm male infants have, more often, higher scores of deactivated and disorganized insecure attachment and those born full-term have higher scores of deactivated insecure attachment. The twinhood variable is not significantly related to the type of attachment. The biological risk variable (clinical group) is not significantly related to the type of attachment, nor to the narrative construction features. The gestational age and birthweight (clinical group) variables, are not significantly related to the attachment representations, nor to the narrative construction features. Finally, we applied multiple regression to determine which variables, of all those studied, will have a higher impact on each type of attachment. Thus, by just knowing the decisive variables of each type of attachment, we may predict the type of attachment of each infant.

Date of Award	15 Dec 2006
Original language	Undefined/Unknown
Supervisor	Josep Maria Costa Molinari (Director), Mercè Mitjavila Garcia (Co-director) & Margarita Ibáñez Fanés (Co-director)