Abstract
It is evident that parental depressive symptoms negatively influence adolescent behavior and various psychosocial outcomes. Certain family types like families with a chronically ill parent and single parent families are more vulnerable to parental depressive symptoms. However, the relationship between these symptoms, family type, and adolescent functioning remains largely unclear. This study examined relations between self-report of parental depressive symptoms and adolescent functioning in 86 two-parent families including a parent with a chronic medical condition, 94 families with healthy single parents, and 69 families with 2 healthy parents (comparison group). Parents completed the Beck Depression Inventory. Adolescents filled in the Youth Self-Report measuring problem behavior, and other instruments measuring psychosocial outcomes (stress, grade point average, school problems, and self-esteem). Multilevel analyses were used to examine the effects of family type, parental depressive symptoms, adolescents' gender and age, and interaction effects on adolescent functioning. The results indicated that adolescents with chronically ill and single parents had a lower grade point average (p<.01) than the comparison group. Adolescents of single parents reported more internalizing problems (p<.01) and externalizing problems (p<.05) than children from the other family types. Parental depressive symptoms were strongly related to child report of stress (p<.001). Adolescents of depressed chronically ill parents were particularly vulnerable to internalizing problems (interaction effect, p<.05). Older children and girls, and especially older girls, displayed more internalizing problems and stress. It can be concluded that growing up with a chronically ill parent in a family with 2 parents may have less impact on adolescent problem behavior than growing up in a single parent family. Health practitioners are encouraged to be attentive to the unique and combined influence of family type and parental depressive symptoms on adolescent functioning. Older and female adolescents deserve particular attention.
Highlights
Both maternal and paternal depressive symptoms are associated with negative consequences for children’s development, including internalizing and externalizing problems, and general psychopathology [1,2,3]
Descriptive statistics This study presents the data of 389 adolescents and their parents from 3 family types
As adolescents from single parent families reported the most elevated problem behavior scores of the three family types, they seemed to be especially vulnerable to adverse outcomes
Summary
Both maternal and paternal depressive symptoms are associated with negative consequences for children’s development, including internalizing and externalizing problems, and general psychopathology [1,2,3]. Goodman et al [2] stress the need to identify subgroups of children who are at greater risk for problem behavior. Several studies revealed that two family types prove to be at increased risk for parental depression. Children with parental CMC show more internalizing problem behavior [5], more stress [13,14], and lower overall academic functioning than other children [15]. Children from single parent families manifest an increased risk for internalizing problems, externalizing problems (delinquent behavior and vandalism), and they display comparatively low academic functioning and self-esteem [16,17,18,19,20,21,22,23].
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