Maternal psychological distress in primary care and association with child behavioural outcomes at age three.

Stephanie L Prady,Kate E Pickett,Dan Mason,Simon Gilbody,Tim Croudace,Emily S Petherick,John Wright,Rosie R C Mceachan

doi:10.1007/s00787-015-0777-2

Abstract

Observational studies indicate children whose mothers have poor mental health are at increased risk of socio-emotional behavioural difficulties, but it is unknown whether these outcomes vary by the mothers’ mental health recognition and treatment status. To examine this question, we analysed linked longitudinal primary care and research data from 1078 women enrolled in the Born in Bradford cohort. A latent class analysis of treatment status and self-reported distress broadly categorised women as (a) not having a common mental disorder (CMD) that persisted through pregnancy and the first 2 years after delivery (N = 756, 70.1 %), (b) treated for CMD (N = 67, 6.2 %), or (c) untreated (N = 255, 23.7 %). Compared to children of mothers without CMD, 3-year-old children with mothers classified as having untreated CMD had higher standardised factor scores on the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (d = 0.32), as did children with mothers classified as having treated CMD (d = 0.27). Results were only slightly attenuated in adjusted analyses. Children of mothers with CMD may be at risk for socio-emotional and behavioural difficulties. The development of effective treatments for CMD needs to be balanced by greater attempts to identify and treat women.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s00787-015-0777-2) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Highlights

Research evidence points to an association between poor parental mental health and increased socio-emotional and behavioural disturbance in their children [1,2,3,4,5,6,7]
The development of effective treatments for common mental disorder (CMD) needs to be balanced by greater attempts to identify and treat women
We modelled the effect of latent classification of CMD on standardised Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) factor scores in three sequential steps

Summary

Introduction

Research evidence points to an association between poor parental mental health and increased socio-emotional and behavioural disturbance in their children [1,2,3,4,5,6,7] Much of this evidence base comes from observational research studies which classify mothers’ and sometimes fathers’ mental health problems using scores derived from screening measures or diagnostic interviews by professionals. These studies quantify the scale of the problem and the nature of the association but their contribution is limited because they only rarely account for impact of treatment received by the parent from health services.

Objectives

Methods

Conclusion