Bidirectional Effect between Maternal Mental Health and Adolescent Adjustment

• In Event: Poster Session 02
  In Poster Session: PS 02 Topic - Developmental Psychopathology

Abstract

The consensus in the scientific literature to date is that parental emotional problems lead to child emotional problems. In particular, maternal mental health concerns have been linked to child mental health concerns. However, recent work has shown a bidirectional effect between mothers’ mental health and adolescent adjustment symptomatology. In the current study, latent difference score modeling was used to explore antecedents of maternal mental health and adolescent internalizing symptoms. Over six consecutive years, 999 adolescent and mother dyads participated in a longitudinal survey study in Belfast, Northern Ireland. To assess maternal mental health, mothers completed the 12-item version of the General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-12), a measure of psychological morbidity used in community and research settings (Goldberg et al., 1997). To assess adolescent internalizing symptomatology, adolescents completed the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) (Goodman, 1997). The current study used only the emotion and peer subscales of the SDQ, which can be combined to assess internalizing symptoms (Goodman et al., 2010). A series of competing models including maternal mental health and adolescent internalizing symptomatology were tested to determine which model best fit the data, rather than only evaluating the impact of maternal mental health on adolescent adjustment. It was hypothesized that maternal mental health would lead to internalizing problems over time for adolescents, and that adolescent internalizing problems would have an effect on maternal mental health. The best fitting model shows that adolescent internalizing symptoms are the antecedents of change in maternal distress symptoms. For higher adolescent internalizing scores, mothers’ GHQ scores changed more positively, indicating that as adolescent internalizing increases, mothers’ mental distress increases. Low internalizing scores are associated with low change in maternal GHQ scores, and high internalizing scores predict a positive change in GHQ scores (i.e., increased maternal mental health problems) at the next measurement point. In the univariate models, parameter estimates show that GHQ symptoms are generally increasing. However, in the full bivariate model, GHQ scores have a negative slope and negative proportional parameter with a positive parameter for the influence of adolescent internalizing behaviors, which indicates that in the full model, adolescent symptoms are the determinants for positively changing maternal distress. Overall, these results indicate that the adolescent impact on mothers’ mental health is the stronger effect. Advancements towards heightened understanding of the bidirectional impact between maternal mental health and adolescent outcomes are discussed.

Authors

• Bethany Wentz, University of Notre Dame
  Presenting Author

• Justin Luningham, Georgia State University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Christine Elizabeth Merrilees, State University of New York College at Geneseo (SUNY Geneseo)
  Non-Presenting Author

• Laura K. Taylor, University College Dublin (UCD)
  Non-Presenting Author

• Marcie C Goeke-Morey, The Catholic University of America
  Non-Presenting Author

• Peter Shirlow, University of Liverpool
  Non-Presenting Author

• E. Mark Cummings, University of Notre Dame
  Non-Presenting Author

• Tess Shannon, University of Notre Dame
  Non-Presenting Author