Wang Peizhong, Qiao Lu, Zhang Zijin, Wu Qinglu, Yang Chunyan, Lin Xiuyun
Institute of Developmental Psychology, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China.
Department of Social Work and Social Administration, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China.
Fam Process. 2025 Mar;64(1):e70006. doi: 10.1111/famp.70006.
Depression, in recent decades, has shown a clear trend to occur at a younger age, emerging as a prevalent mental health concern among primary school children. According to family system theory and social-ecological principles, parent individual factors, as distal factors, are able to influence the depression of child individual through the proximal factor of parent-child dyadic interaction. Within this integrated theory framework, this study aimed to utilize the principle of the actor-partner independence model to investigate the indirect pathway from paternal and maternal positive/negative emotional expressiveness to primary school children's depression via father-child and mother-child closeness/conflict. The study comprised 403 Chinese families, assessed at two separate time points with a 6-month interval. Our results showed that both paternal and maternal positive emotional expressiveness indirectly predicted children's depression through their own conflict with their child, while both parental negative emotional expressiveness indirectly predicted the children's depression through mother-child conflict. This study elucidated two pathways of (a) family distal factors to proximal factors, and subsequently to the child; (b) parent individual factors to the parent-child dyadic interaction, and subsequently to the child individual factors within the family system. Our findings suggest that regulating parental emotional expressiveness and fostering good parent-child relationships represent potential effective strategies for preventing primary school children's depression.
近几十年来，抑郁症呈现出明显的低龄化趋势，在小学生中成为一个普遍的心理健康问题。根据家庭系统理论和社会生态原则，作为远端因素的父母个体因素，能够通过亲子二元互动这一近端因素影响儿童个体的抑郁状况。在这个整合的理论框架内，本研究旨在运用行为者-伙伴独立性模型的原理，探究父母的积极/消极情绪表达通过亲子亲密关系/冲突对小学生抑郁产生的间接路径。该研究涵盖了403个中国家庭，在两个相隔6个月的不同时间点进行评估。我们的结果表明，父母双方的积极情绪表达都通过自身与孩子的冲突间接预测儿童的抑郁，而父母双方的消极情绪表达都通过母子冲突间接预测儿童的抑郁。本研究阐明了两条路径：（a）家庭远端因素到近端因素，进而影响孩子；（b）父母个体因素到亲子二元互动，进而影响家庭系统中的儿童个体因素。我们的研究结果表明，调节父母的情绪表达以及培养良好的亲子关系是预防小学生抑郁的潜在有效策略。
