Xu Weiman, Parra Gilbert R, Wickrama Thulitha, Merten Michael J
Department of Child, Youth and Family Studies, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Lincoln, Nebraska, USA.
Fam Process. 2025 Jun;64(2):e70043. doi: 10.1111/famp.70043.
Parenting stress is associated with negative outcomes for both parents and their children, and it may be influenced by the quality of relationships that parents had with their own parents. To enhance understanding of this intergenerational relation, the present study examined whether stability and change in depressive symptoms mediated the association between parent-adolescent relationship quality during adolescence and subsequent parenting stress almost 25 years later. Using data from all five waves of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (Add Health) restricted dataset from the United States, the study included adolescents who were between 12 and18 years old at Wave 1 and had at least one child at Wave 5 (2016-2018; N = 4890; M at Wave 1 = 15.67, SD at Wave 1 = 1.50). A modified version of the random intercept cross-lagged model was used to account for both within- and between-person levels of depressive symptoms. Findings indicated that high levels of parent-adolescent relationship quality (with both mothers and fathers) were related to low levels of depressive symptoms that were stable over the almost 25 years of the study (between-person individual differences). In turn, low levels of depressive symptoms that were stable over time were associated with low levels of parenting stress in parenthood. Results underscore the potential long-term value of interventions that enhance parent-adolescent relationship quality in adolescence, as these could reduce enduring depressive symptoms and parenting stress in future generations.
育儿压力与父母及其子女的负面结果相关，并且它可能受到父母与其自己父母之间关系质量的影响。为了增进对这种代际关系的理解，本研究考察了抑郁症状的稳定性和变化是否介导了青春期亲子关系质量与近25年后的后续育儿压力之间的关联。利用来自美国全国青少年健康纵向研究（Add Health）受限数据集所有五轮的数据，该研究纳入了在第1轮时年龄在12至18岁之间且在第5轮（2016 - 2018年；N = 4890；第1轮时的M = 15.67，第1轮时的SD = 1.50）至少育有一个孩子的青少年。使用随机截距交叉滞后模型的一个修改版本来考虑抑郁症状的个体内和个体间水平。研究结果表明，高水平的亲子关系质量（与母亲和父亲的关系均如此）与在近25年的研究期间保持稳定的低水平抑郁症状相关（个体间差异）。反过来，随时间保持稳定的低水平抑郁症状与为人父母后的低水平育儿压力相关。研究结果强调了在青春期提高亲子关系质量的干预措施的潜在长期价值，因为这些措施可以减少后代持续存在的抑郁症状和育儿压力。
