Maternal and paternal depressive symptoms and children's emotional problems at the age of 2 and 5 years: a longitudinal study.

BACKGROUND

Maternal and paternal depressive symptoms are related to children's emotional problems, but their combined effect remains unclear. Here, we constructed four parental longitudinal depressive symptom trajectory groups and studied their associations with children's emotional problems at the age of 2 and 5 years.

METHODS

We did an assessment of maternal and paternal depressive symptoms (gestational week 32, as well as 3, 8 and 24 months postnatally) and children's emotional problems at ages two (N = 939) and five (N = 700) in the CHILD-SLEEP cohort. Three separate maternal and paternal depressive symptom trajectories based on latent profile analysis were combined to form four parental depressive symptom trajectory groups. We compared groups with a general linear model, with children's emotional (total, internalizing and externalizing) - problem scores serving as the dependent variables.

RESULTS

At both ages, combined parental depressive symptom trajectories were associated with children's emotional problems: effect sizes were medium for total and small for other domains. According to post hoc comparisons, children whose mothers or both parents had persistent depressive symptoms had significantly more total, externalizing and internalizing problems than did children who had neither parent nor only the father showing depressive symptoms. A higher (and persistent) level of maternal depressive symptoms was related to a higher level of these children's emotional problems, a pattern not evident with paternal depressive symptoms. In all analyses, the interaction effect was nonsignificant between parental trajectories and child gender.

CONCLUSIONS

Findings suggest that an absence of depressive symptoms in their fathers cannot compensate for the adverse effects of maternal depressive symptoms upon their children. Moreover, paternal depressive symptoms alone do not lead to increased risk for emotional problems in these 2- and 5-year-old children. In contrast, even subclinical levels of maternal depressive symptoms in late pregnancy are associated with increased risk for their children's experiencing internalizing and externalizing emotional problems.