Longitudinal Bidirectional Relationships Between Maternal Depressive/Anxious Symptoms and Children's Tic Frequency in Early Adolescence.

Tomoko Yagi,Yuko Morimoto,Yudai Iijima,Satoshi Usami,Syudo Yamasaki,Sho Kanata,Kaori Endo,Noriyuki Hayashi,Shinya Fujikawa,Tomoki Kiyono,Masaya Morita,Mariko Hiraiwa-Hasegawa,Atsushi Nishida,Yukiko Kano,Shuntaro Ando,Shinsuke Koike,Kiyoto Kasai

doi:10.3389/fpsyt.2021.767571

Abstract

Background: Previous studies have revealed an association between maternal depressive/anxious symptoms and children's tics. However, the longitudinal relationships between these symptoms remain unclear. We examined the longitudinal relationships between maternal depressive/anxious symptoms and children's tic frequency in early adolescence with a population-based sample.Methods: The participants consisted of 3,171 children and their mothers from the Tokyo Teen Cohort (TTC) study, a population-representative longitudinal study that was launched in Tokyo in 2012. Maternal depressive/anxious symptoms and children's tics were examined using self-report questionnaires at the ages of 10 (time 1, T1) and 12 (time 2, T2). A cross-lagged model was used to explore the relationships between maternal depressive/anxious symptoms and children's tic frequency.Results: Higher levels of maternal depressive/anxious symptoms at T1 were related to an increased children's tic frequency at T2 (β = 0.06, p < 0.001). Furthermore, more frequent children's tics at T1 were positively related to maternal depressive/anxious symptoms at T2 (β = 0.06, p < 0.001).Conclusions: These findings suggest a longitudinal bidirectional relationship between maternal depressive/anxious symptoms and children's tic frequency in early adolescence that may exacerbate each other over time and possibly create a vicious cycle. When an early adolescent has tics, it might be important to identify and treat related maternal depressive/anxious symptoms.

Highlights

Tics are sudden, rapid, recurrent, and non-rhythmic motor movements or vocalizations
Among children who participated in Tokyo Early Adolescence Survey (T-EAS) and were interested in participating in the cohort study, all 620 children whose household annual income was lower than 4,990 thousand yen were invited
We found that the distributions of the Kessler Psychological Distress Scale (K6) and the General Health Questionnaire-28 (GHQ-28) were similar based on the graphing cumulative distribution of their Z scores (Supplementary Figure 1)

Summary

Introduction

Rapid, recurrent, and non-rhythmic motor movements or vocalizations. Tourette syndrome (TS) is defined by the presence of at least two motor tic behaviors and one vocal tic behavior for a minimum period of a year, manifesting before the age of 18. Recent population-based studies have demonstrated that tics are more common than previously recognized [2,3,4,5]. Tic disorders tend to be remitted with age through adolescence [7, 13, 14]. Previous studies have revealed an association between maternal depressive/anxious symptoms and children’s tics. We examined the longitudinal relationships between maternal depressive/anxious symptoms and children’s tic frequency in early adolescence with a population-based sample

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Conclusion