a Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences , University of Massachusetts Amherst.
J Clin Child Adolesc Psychol. 2018;47(sup1):S190-S204. doi: 10.1080/15374416.2016.1212357. Epub 2016 Sep 21.
Considerable research has examined the effects of maternal depression on children, but few studies have focused on the relation between paternal and child depressive symptoms, particularly during early childhood. Even fewer studies have been longitudinal, leaving open questions about how paternal and child depression covary over time. The present study sought to address this gap by examining the relation between fathers' and children's depressive symptoms over a 3-year period. Participants were 153 preschool children with behavior problems and their parents. Three longitudinal analytic approaches were used to examine how father and child depression change together and predict one another over time. Additional analyses examined whether externalizing problems or maternal depression might account for the associations between fathers' and children's depressive symptoms. Changes in paternal depression significantly predicted changes in father-reported and mother-reported child depressive symptoms. These effects were evident both in year-to-year fluctuations and in linear trajectories across the 3-year period. Cross-lagged analyses suggested that these relations may have been driven by father-effects; paternal depression at one time point predicted child depression at the next time point, but child depression did not significantly predict later paternal depression. We found little evidence that externalizing problems or maternal depression accounted for the relations between fathers' and children's depressive symptoms. Results provide convergent evidence that fathers' depression may play an important role in the development of depressive symptoms in young children and underscore the importance of including fathers in studies of depression in families.
大量研究考察了母亲抑郁对儿童的影响，但很少有研究关注父亲和孩子抑郁症状之间的关系，尤其是在儿童早期。纵向研究更是少之又少，这使得关于父亲和孩子的抑郁症状如何随时间变化的问题悬而未决。本研究通过考察 3 年内父亲和孩子抑郁症状之间的关系来解决这一差距。参与者为 153 名有行为问题的学龄前儿童及其父母。采用三种纵向分析方法来检验父亲和孩子的抑郁症状如何随着时间的推移而共同变化，并相互预测。进一步的分析还检验了外化问题或母亲抑郁是否可能解释父亲和孩子抑郁症状之间的关系。父亲抑郁的变化显著预测了父亲报告和母亲报告的孩子抑郁症状的变化。这些影响在每年的波动和 3 年期间的线性轨迹中都很明显。交叉滞后分析表明，这些关系可能是由父亲的影响驱动的；一个时间点的父亲抑郁预测下一个时间点的孩子抑郁，但孩子抑郁并没有显著预测随后的父亲抑郁。我们几乎没有发现外化问题或母亲抑郁可以解释父亲和孩子抑郁症状之间的关系。结果提供了一致的证据，表明父亲的抑郁可能在幼儿抑郁症状的发展中起重要作用，并强调了在家庭中抑郁研究中包括父亲的重要性。
