Institute for Psychosocial Prevention, University Hospital Heidelberg, Germany.
Department of Psychology, RPTU University of Kaiserslautern-Landau, Germany.
Clin Psychol Rev. 2023 Aug;104:102322. doi: 10.1016/j.cpr.2023.102322. Epub 2023 Jul 16.
This systematic review and meta-analysis is aimed to summarize the state of research on the relation between parental depression and parental mentalizing. To account for the multifaceted nature of parental mentalizing, several conceptualizations and measures were included and compared. The last database search was conducted on March 13, 2023. Using three-level meta-analytic modelling, we analyzed a total of 12,665 participants from 63 studies with 233 effect sizes. Taken together, higher depression was only weakly associated with lower mentalizing (r = -0.06). Specifically, parents with higher depression scored lower on questionnaire measures of parental reflective functioning (r = -0.11). No significant correlations were found for interview measures of parental reflective functioning, the observational and interview measure of mind-mindedness, or insightfulness. The data showed substantial heterogeneity. The mean effect size for self-reported pre-mentalizing (r = -0.23 for reverse-coded subscale scores) was significantly stronger compared to other self-report subscales. In studies including parents with diagnosis and controls, there was limited evidence suggesting a larger negative correlation between depression, mind-mindedness, and insightfulness. Therefore, more research is needed in clinical samples. Due to their correlational nature, our results do not allow causal inferences. Future studies should target moderators that explain variability (e.g., comorbid psychological problems, coparenting, child behavior).
本系统评价和荟萃分析旨在总结父母抑郁与父母心理化之间关系的研究现状。为了说明父母心理化的多方面性质，纳入并比较了几种概念化和测量方法。最后一次数据库搜索于 2023 年 3 月 13 日进行。我们使用三级荟萃分析模型，分析了来自 63 项研究的 12665 名参与者的 233 个效应量。总的来说，较高的抑郁程度仅与较低的心理化程度呈弱相关（r=-0.06）。具体来说，抑郁程度较高的父母在父母反思功能问卷（r=-0.11）上的得分较低。对于父母反思功能的访谈测量、思维的观察和访谈测量或洞察力，没有发现显著的相关性。数据显示存在很大的异质性。自我报告的前心理化的平均效应量（r=-0.23，反向编码子量表得分）明显强于其他自我报告子量表。在包括有诊断和对照组的父母的研究中，有有限的证据表明抑郁、思维敏锐度和洞察力之间存在更大的负相关。因此，需要在临床样本中进行更多的研究。由于其相关性，我们的结果不允许进行因果推断。未来的研究应针对解释变异性的调节因素（例如，共患心理问题、共同养育、儿童行为）。
