Within-family relations of mental health problems across childhood and adolescence.
Publication Date
2022-01-24Journal Title
J Child Psychol Psychiatry
ISSN
0021-9630
Publisher
Wiley
Language
en
Type
Article
This Version
AO
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Speyer, L., Hall, H. A., Hang, Y., Hughes, C., & Murray, A. L. (2022). Within-family relations of mental health problems across childhood and adolescence.. J Child Psychol Psychiatry https://doi.org/10.1111/jcpp.13572
Description
Funder: University Of Edinburgh; Id: http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/501100000848
Abstract
BACKGROUND: While transactional models suggest that parent and child mental health reciprocally influence one another over development, research has largely focused on parent-to-child effects. Additionally, it is not known whether observed associations hold when appropriate statistical tools are used to operationalise within-family dynamics. METHODS: We investigated within-family mental health dynamics using autoregressive latent trajectory models with structured residuals, stratified by child gender. Parental psychological distress was assessed using the Kessler (K6) scale, and children's internalising and externalising problems were assessed using the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire. Both measures were administered at the age 3, 5, 7, 11, 14 and 17 waves of the Millennium Cohort Study (N = 10,746, ~50% female). RESULTS: Maternal psychological distress was positively associated with subsequent internalising and externalising problems for girls but only with internalising problems for boys. Paternal psychological distress was associated with boys' later internalising and externalising problems during early adolescence. Among boys, internalising problems were associated with later maternal psychological distress, while externalising problems were associated with later paternal psychological distress. Among girls, internalising problems were associated with subsequent paternal psychological distress, while externalising problems were associated with later maternal psychological distress. Finally, maternal and paternal psychological distress showed negative bidirectional associations in early childhood but positive associations in middle childhood and early adolescence. CONCLUSIONS: Findings support a transactional model of family mental health, with both child-to-parent and parent-to-child effects playing a role in the development of mental health difficulties. Mental health intervention efforts should, therefore, target the whole family system.
Keywords
Original Article, Original Articles, Parental mental health, internalising, externalising, within‐family, Millennium Cohort Study
Sponsorship
Economic and Social Research Council (ES/R500938/1)
Identifiers
jcpp13572
External DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/jcpp.13572
This record's URL: https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/333332
Rights
Licence:
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
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