Rodriguez Christina M, Gowda Ferguson Anjali, Gonzalez Samantha
Department of Psychology, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, AL 35294, USA.
Department of Psychiatry, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA 23284, USA.
Children (Basel). 2022 Mar 3;9(3):350. doi: 10.3390/children9030350.
Although children's depressive and anxious symptoms have been broadly construed as internalizing problems, the current study sought to identify factors that may differentially contribute to these two mental health problems in a high-risk sample. Prior research has not adequately tested both depressive versus anxious symptoms simultaneously, nor has it adequately considered the role of negative versus positive parenting simultaneously, thereby neglecting the potential overlap in both sets of constructs. Overlooking such potential statistical overlap obfuscates how factors may differentially contribute to either depressive versus anxious symptoms. Existing research has also focused on lower-risk community samples.
The present study investigated whether children's negative self-concept or maladaptive attributional style mediated the link between both negative and positive parenting in a racially diverse, at-risk sample of 65 primary school-age children recruited from mental health agencies.
When tested together, more negative parenting, but not less positive parenting, retained direct effects on both depressive and anxious symptoms. Both negative self-concept and maladaptive attributional style fully mediated the association between less positive parenting and children's depressive symptoms, whereas positive self-concept, but not attributional style, mediated between less positive parenting and anxious symptoms.
The current findings underscore potential differential intervention targets for these two internalizing problems and highlight the need for future research to consider both depressive and anxious symptoms, and related predictors, simultaneously to control for their shared variance.
尽管儿童的抑郁和焦虑症状被广泛视为内化问题，但本研究旨在确定在高风险样本中可能对这两种心理健康问题有不同影响的因素。先前的研究没有充分同时测试抑郁症状与焦虑症状，也没有充分同时考虑消极养育与积极养育的作用，从而忽略了这两组构念之间的潜在重叠。忽视这种潜在的统计重叠会模糊各因素对抑郁症状与焦虑症状的不同影响方式。现有研究也集中在低风险的社区样本上。
本研究调查了在从心理健康机构招募的65名小学适龄儿童的种族多样化高风险样本中，儿童的消极自我概念或适应不良的归因方式是否介导了消极养育和积极养育与症状之间的联系。
当同时进行测试时，更多的消极养育而非较少的积极养育对抑郁和焦虑症状均保持直接影响。消极自我概念和适应不良的归因方式均完全介导了较少的积极养育与儿童抑郁症状之间的关联，而积极自我概念而非归因方式介导了较少的积极养育与焦虑症状之间的关联。
当前研究结果强调了针对这两种内化问题的潜在不同干预目标，并突出了未来研究需要同时考虑抑郁和焦虑症状以及相关预测因素，以控制它们的共同方差。
