Poster #61 - Developmental Trajectories of Internalizing Symptoms during Early Childhood: The Role of Maternal Depression and Anxiety

• In Event: 1-061 - Poster Session 02
  In Poster Session: PS 02 Section - Developmental Psychopathology

Integrative Statement

Research suggests that children of parents with internalizing disorders are five times more likely to develop anxiety disorders than children of parents with no disorders (Beidel & Turner, 1997; Lieb, et al., 2000). Studies have shown that greater maternal depressive and anxiety symptoms are associated with children exhibiting high levels of internalizing symptoms across both early and middle childhood (e.g. Sterba et al., 2007). However, few examine joint effects of depression and anxiety. There may be specific risks for children depending on the diagnoses of the parent (Biederman et al., 2006). The present study examined how maternal internalizing symptoms may be related to developmental trajectories of internalizing symptoms during early childhood.

The data used is part of a larger longitudinal study of temperament and socioemotional development from 2 to 6 years. Parents self-reported their internalizing symptoms using the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale (CESD; Radloff, 1977), General Anxiety Disorder Questionnaire (GADQ; Newman et al., 2002) and Social Interaction Anxiety Scale (SIAS; Mattick & Clarke, 1989) when children were aged 3. Parents also reported on their children’s internalizing and social withdrawal symptoms using at Health Behavior Questionnaire (HBQ; Armstrong et al., 2003) when children were 3, 4, 5 and 6 years old. Latent growth analyses were conducted to examine individual changes in children’s internalizing symptoms with CESD, GADQ and SIAS entered as predictors, and child sex entered as a covariate.

A linear model did not fit the data well, 2 = 85.57, p < .001, CFI = .47, RMSEA = .18, p < .001. A quadratic term was entered, and fit indices for this model were good (Figure 1). Maternal depression significantly predicted children’s internalizing symptoms at age 3 such that higher CESD scores predicted more child internalizing symptoms, B = 0.004, SE = .002, p = .02. Maternal social anxiety approached significance in predicting both linear, B = 0.004, SE = .002, p = .07, and quadratic growth, B = -0.001, SE = .001, p = .09 (Figure 2). The association between SIAS and linear change is positive, suggesting that higher maternal social anxiety symptoms are associated with increased change in child internalizing. The association between SIAS and quadratic change is negative, suggesting higher maternal social anxiety symptoms are associated with a greater quadratic effect, indicating greater change in children’s internalizing symptoms.

Results suggest that maternal depression and social anxiety are differentially associated with child internalizing symptoms. Maternal depression predicts concurrent levels of child internalizing symptoms, but does not predict change. Children with mothers with elevated social anxiety symptoms are at elevated risk of developing more internalizing symptoms during early childhood, but this relation may be mitigated by other factors around the time of school entry, leading to more decreases in internalizing symptoms during kindergarten. Future research should examine the role in which children’s individual differences, such as temperament or physiology, may interact with maternal internalizing symptoms to predict trajectories of internalizing symptom development to further elucidate which children are at risk of developing internalizing disorders later in life.

Authors

• Anna Mo Zhou, The Pennsylvania State University
  Presenting Author

• Kristin A Buss, The Pennsylvania State University
  Non-Presenting Author