3-233 - Parental Depression and Youths’ Outcomes: Integrating Advanced Methods to Gain Novel Insights

Session Type: Paper Symposium

Integrative Statement

Although an abundance of research has established links among parental depression and indicators of offspring’s maladjustment, methodological and technological advances provide the means to acquire a deeper understanding of this important process. This symposium will present three papers that investigated the relations among parental depression and youths’ outcomes in novel ways by incorporating methods from the fields of causal inference, genomic prediction, and ecological momentary assessment (EMA). Two papers drew on a large, diverse sample of families who participated in a longitudinal intervention study over 12 years, and the third sampled youth (ages 9-14) at high and low familial risk for depression. Our first paper (Pelham) will present innovative research that estimated the causal effect of maternal depression on children's internalizing and externalizing problems by implementing propensity score matching on over 80 confounding factors. The second paper (Wang) is one of the first to examine whether the effect of maternal depression on a particularly impairing outcome, adolescents’ co-occurring internalizing/externalizing problems, depended on youths’ polygenic risk scores. Our third paper (Hamilton) used EMA and multi-informant reports of sleep to examine whether youth with parental depression had more overall sleep dysfunction than youth without, as well as sex differences in this association. These papers add greater precision to our understanding of the degree to which, for whom, and how treating parental depression may improve children’s outcomes. The discussant (Shaw) will integrate the papers to highlight the thematic similarities, implications for prevention, and critical directions for future research.

Sub Unit

• Developmental Psychopathology

Chair

• Frances Lynn Wang, University of Pittsburgh

Discussant

• Daniel S. Shaw, University of Pittsburgh

Individual Presentations

• Does Maternal Depression During Early Childhood Cause Child Externalizing and Internalizing Problems? A Propensity Score Study. - Presenting Author: William E Pelham III, Arizona State University; Non-Presenting Author: Stephen West, Arizona State University; Non-Presenting Author: Kathryn Lemery-Chalfant, Arizona State University; Non-Presenting Author: Sherryl Goodman, Emory University; Non-Presenting Author: Daniel S. Shaw, University of Pittsburgh; Non-Presenting Author: Melvin N. Wilson, University of Virginia; Non-Presenting Author: Thomas Dishion, Arizona State University

• Genetic Factors Interact with Maternal Depression to Predict Adolescents’ Co-occurring Internalizing/Externalizing Problems - Presenting Author: Frances Lynn Wang, University of Pittsburgh; Non-Presenting Author: Kathryn Lemery-Chalfant, Arizona State University; Non-Presenting Author: Melvin N. Wilson, University of Virginia; Non-Presenting Author: Daniel S. Shaw, University of Pittsburgh

• Sex Differences in Sleep Dysfunction Among Youth with Parental Depression - Presenting Author: Jessica Leigh Hamilton, University of Pittsburgh; Non-Presenting Author: Cecile D Ladouceur, University of Pittsburgh; Non-Presenting Author: Jennifer Silk, University of Pittsburgh; Non-Presenting Author: Lauren Bylsma, University of Pittsburgh