Psychology Department, Harvard University, William James Hall, 33 Kirkland Street, Cambridge, MA, 02138, USA,
J Abnorm Child Psychol. 2014 Feb;42(2):195-204. doi: 10.1007/s10802-013-9780-6.
Links between parents' psychiatric symptoms and their children's behavioral and emotional problems have been widely documented in previous research, and the search for moderators of this association has begun. However, family structure (single versus dual-parent households) has received little attention as a potential moderator, despite indirect evidence that risk may be elevated in single-parent homes. Two other candidate moderators-youth gender and age-have been tested directly, but with inconsistent findings across studies, perhaps in part because studies have differed in whether they used youth clinical samples and in which informants (parents vs. youths) reported on youth problems. In the present study, we examined these three candidate moderators using a sample of exclusively clinic-referred youths (N = 333, 34 % girls, aged 7-14,) and assessing youth problems through both parent- and youth-reports. Both family structure and youth gender emerged as robust moderators across parent and youth informants. Parent symptoms were associated with youth internalizing and externalizing problems in single-parent but not dual-parent homes; and parent symptoms were associated with youth internalizing problems among boys, but not girls. The moderator findings suggest that the risks associated with parent psychopathology may not be uniform but may depend, in part, on family structure and youth gender.
先前的研究广泛记录了父母的精神症状与其子女行为和情绪问题之间的联系，并且已经开始寻找这种关联的调节因素。然而，尽管有间接证据表明单亲家庭的风险可能更高，但家庭结构（单亲与双亲家庭）作为一个潜在的调节因素却很少受到关注。另外两个候选调节因素——青少年的性别和年龄——已经被直接测试过，但在不同的研究中得到的结果不一致，这可能部分是因为研究在是否使用青少年临床样本以及哪些信息提供者（父母还是青少年）报告青少年问题方面存在差异。在本研究中，我们使用了一个专门来自诊所的青少年样本（N=333，34%为女孩，年龄为 7-14 岁），并通过父母和青少年报告来评估青少年的问题，检验了这三个候选调节因素。家庭结构和青少年性别都成为了父母和青少年信息提供者的强有力的调节因素。在单亲家庭中，父母的症状与青少年的内化和外化问题有关，但在双亲家庭中则没有；在男孩中，父母的症状与青少年的内化问题有关，但在女孩中则没有。这些调节因素的发现表明，与父母精神病理学相关的风险可能不是统一的，而是部分取决于家庭结构和青少年的性别。
