Department of Psychology and Social Behavior.
Department of Psychology.
J Fam Psychol. 2018 Sep;32(6):773-782. doi: 10.1037/fam0000437. Epub 2018 Jun 21.
Interparental conflict is a common source of psychosocial stress in the lives of children. The purpose of this study was to examine the association between recent interparental conflict and one component of the physiological stress response system, the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA)-axis. Parents of 42 children (ages 8-13 years) completed daily diaries of interparental conflict for 8 weeks. At the end of the 8 weeks, youth participated in the Trier Social Stress Test for Children (TSST-C) while providing 2 pre- and 4 poststress salivary cortisol samples. Youth whose fathers reported a pattern of increasing interparental conflict over the past 8 weeks demonstrated an exaggerated HPA-axis response to acute stress. Mother-reported interparental conflict was not associated with children's HPA-axis responses without accounting for fathers' reports. When accounting for fathers' reports, the offspring of mothers reporting higher average daily interparental conflict demonstrated an attenuated HPA-axis response to the stressor. By estimating both average exposure and recent patterns of change in exposure to conflict, we address the circumstances that may prompt attenuation versus sensitization of the HPA-axis in the context of interparental conflict. We conclude that the HPA-axis is sensitive to proximal increases in interparental conflict which may be one pathway through which stress affects health across development, and that incorporating father's reports is important to understanding the role of the family environment in stress responses. This study further demonstrates the value of using intensive repeated measures and multiple reporters to characterize children's psychosocial environment. (PsycINFO Database Record
父母间的冲突是儿童生活中常见的社会心理压力源。本研究旨在探讨近期父母间冲突与生理应激反应系统的一个组成部分——下丘脑-垂体-肾上腺（HPA）轴之间的关系。42 名儿童（8-13 岁）的父母完成了 8 周的父母间冲突日常日记。在 8 周结束时，青少年参加了儿童特里尔社会应激测试（TSST-C），同时提供了 2 份应激前和 4 份应激后唾液皮质醇样本。过去 8 周内，父亲报告父母间冲突模式不断增加的青少年对急性应激的 HPA 轴反应更为强烈。如果不考虑父亲的报告，母亲报告的父母间冲突与儿童的 HPA 轴反应无关。当考虑到父亲的报告时，报告日常父母间冲突平均值较高的母亲的子女对压力源的 HPA 轴反应减弱。通过估计冲突暴露的平均暴露和近期变化模式，我们解决了可能导致 HPA 轴在父母间冲突背景下敏化或脱敏的情况。我们的结论是，HPA 轴对父母间冲突的近期增加敏感，这可能是压力影响整个发育过程中健康的途径之一，并且纳入父亲的报告对于理解家庭环境在应激反应中的作用很重要。本研究进一步证明了使用密集重复测量和多个报告者来描述儿童社会心理环境的价值。
