Maternal History of Suicide Attempt Disrupts Mother-Child Synchrony

• In Event: 1-040 - Family History of Suicidal Behaviors and Youth Outcomes

Integrative Statement

Although we know that suicide risk is elevated among individuals with a family history of suicide, relatively little is known about specific intergenerational mechanisms of risk. This said, there is growing evidence for disruptions in parent-child relations. However, the majority of this research has focused on broad measures of parenting behavior or the parent-child relationship. The goal of this study was to provide a fine-grained examination of one aspect of the parent-child relationship, moment-to-moment synchrony of affect during parent-child interactions. Although no studies of which we are aware examined this in the context of suicide risk, there are data from other studies showing that higher levels of synchrony are associated with positive outcomes while lower levels of synchrony are associated with negative outcomes.

Participants in this study were 392 mother-child dyads. Of the mothers, 59 (15%) had a history of at least one prior suicide attempt (SA). The average age of the children was 9.34 years (SD = 1.48) and 49% were girls. Families completed a discussion paradigm in which they engaged in a positive and negative discussion. During these discussions, facial electromyography (EMG) was recorded simultaneously from the parent and child as an index of emotional facial expressions. Specifically, corrugator activity was used to index moment-to-moment changes in negative affect and zygomaticus activity was used to index changes in positive affect. The EMG data were binned in 1 second epochs, which allowed us to examine moment-to-moment changes in mothers’ and children’s facial displays of negative and positive affect.

Linear mixed models were then used to examine synchrony in facial affect during each discussion task. Because we were primarily interested in the impact of mothers’ affect on their children, we examined lagged synchrony in which mothers’ EMG activity at time t-1 was used to predict change in children EMG activity from time t-1 to time t (one second later). Also, given the clear sex difference in suicide risk, we examined the potential moderating role of child sex in all analyses. We found significant lagged synchrony of positive and negative facial affect in both interactions with mothers’ affect predicting changes in children’s affect one second later. The one exception was for positive affect during the positive discussion. In this case, we found that the impact of mother zygomaticus activity on changes in children’s zygomaticus activity was moderated by mothers’ history of SA and child sex. Breaking down this interaction, we found intact synchrony for all dyads except daughters of mothers with a history of SA. In these families, changes in mothers’ facial displays of positive affect had a significantly weaker impact on girls’ facial displays of positive affect. This may represent one mechanism of risk in daughters of suicide attempts. Specifically, when trying to share positive affect with their daughters, they are less able to do so.

Authors

• Brandon Gibb, Binghamton University
  Presenting Author

• Aliona Tsypes, Binghamton University (SUNY)
  Non-Presenting Author

• Kiera M James, Binghamton University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Anastacia Y Kudinova, Binghamton University
  Non-Presenting Author