Fathers' and mothers' perceptions of their child and maternal depressive symptoms

Abstract

Fathers' reports concerning their children have seldom been considered in the previous studieson maternal depression and child development. The literature on parental reports in generalsuggests that discrepancies in mothers' and fathers' perceptions are associated with thepsychological state of the parent and the gender of the child. As part of a prospective follow-upstudy, fathers' and mothers' perceptions of children's social competence and behavioural/emotional problems were assessed by the Child Behavior Checklists (CBCLs) when the firstbornchildren were 8–9 years old. The depressive symptoms of the mothers were screened by theEdinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale (EPDS) at the same time point. The level of children'ssocial competence and behavioural/emotional problems reported by the fathers were analysed bybackground factors. The reports of both parents were explored by the gender of the child and bythe presence of maternal depressive symptoms. The concordance of parental reports concerningchild's social competence was high, but fathers usually reported lower problem levels thanmothers, particularly for boys' problems. The presence of maternal depressive symptoms wasassociated with child's high problem levels from both fathers' and mothers' perspective. Parentalratings of children's externalizing problems in particular were associated with high maternaldepressive symptom level.