The Effects of Comorbid Anxiety and Depression on Parenting

• In Event: Poster Session 07
  In Poster Session: PS 07 Topic - Developmental Psychopathology

Abstract

There is little research examining how the comorbidity between the anxiety and depressive disorders affects parenting. Given that depression and anxiety are highly comorbid, it is likely that many parents are diagnosed with both disorders (Kessler et al., 2005). Additionally, while the separate effects of maternal anxiety and depression on parenting have been well studied, the results have sometimes been inconsistent (Lovejoy et al., 2000; van der Bruggen et al., 2008). Considering the heterogeneity of effect sizes and the comorbidity of anxiety and depressive disorders, the current study explored the hypothesis that parents with comorbid anxiety and depressive disorders may use different parenting behaviors than parents with either disorder alone.
Four hundred and ninety-one 3-year old children (M = 3.52 years, SD = 0.26; 54% male; 88% Caucasian) and their mothers were observed while completing a set of tasks designed to elicited different parenting behaviors (the Teaching Task Battery; Egeland et al., 1995). The task was coded for supportive presence, intrusiveness, hostility, quality of instruction, confidence, positive affectivity, and negative affectivity. Additionally, lifetime maternal psychopathology was assessed using the Structured Clinical Interview for the DSM-IV, Non-patient version (SCID-NP; First et al., 2002). Finally, mothers provided self-report data about their own parenting behaviors using the Sessa Preschool Parenting Measure (Sessa et al., 2001), which generates scales for maternal positive affect, hostility, structure, and responsiveness.
Regression analyses tested the impact of maternal diagnoses of major depressive disorder (MDD), dysthymic disorder (DD), generalized anxiety disorder (GAD), social phobia (SP) and panic disorder (PD), as well as anxiety by depressive disorders interactions, on observational parenting. Given the overlap between anxiety and depressive disorders (Kessler et al., 2005), separate regressions were run for each pair of diagnoses and the interaction between those two disorders. Three diagnosis pairs were found to predict observational parenting. Specifically, SP interacted with GAD, such that mothers with both disorders showed higher levels of hostility compared to mothers with either disorder alone (β = 0.42, SE = 0.16, p < 0.01). SP also interacted with DD also to predict maternal hostility, such that mothers with both SP and DD showed significantly lower levels of hostility towards their children (β = -0.28 , SE = 0.13, p = 0.03). Additionally, PD interacted with DD to predict maternal positive affect, such that mothers with both DD and PD showed significantly less positive affect (β = -0.40, SE = 0.17, p = 0.02). Analyses were repeated with mother-reported parenting data and two of the three interactions were replicated; namely, SP and DD interacted to predict maternal hostility (β = 3.40, SE = 1.12, p < 0.01) and there was a marginal interaction such that, DD and PD to predict mother positive affect (β = -1.12, SE = 0.65, p < 0.09). The present study demonstrates how parents with both anxiety and depressive disorders may exhibit parenting differences, which can be detected across multiple methods. It also highlights the importance of considering anxiety and depressive comorbidity in future investigations of how parental psychopathology influences parenting.

Authors

• Miranda L Evans, University of New Orleans
  Presenting Author

• Sarah Black, University of New Orleans
  Non-Presenting Author

• Daniel N Klein, Stony Brook University
  Non-Presenting Author