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Maternal depression and child behaviour problems: a meta‐analysis
Author(s) -
Beck Cheryl Tatano
Publication year - 1999
Publication title -
journal of advanced nursing
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.948
H-Index - 155
eISSN - 1365-2648
pISSN - 0309-2402
DOI - 10.1046/j.1365-2648.1999.00943.x
Subject(s) - depression (economics) , meta analysis , sample size determination , psychopathology , psychology , index (typography) , clinical psychology , developmental psychology , medicine , statistics , mathematics , world wide web , economics , macroeconomics , computer science
Maternal depression and child behaviour problems: a meta‐analysis ¶Children of depressed mothers are not only at risk for the development of psychopathology, but also for behaviour problems. A meta‐analysis of 33 studies was conducted to determine the magnitude of the relationship between maternal depression and behaviour problems in children 1 year of age and older. Substantive, methodological, and miscellaneous variables were extracted and coded by both the researcher and a research assistant. The initial inter‐rater agreement reached in coding these variables ranged from 85% to 100%. Effect sizes were calculated in three ways: unweighted, weighted by sample size, and weighted by quality index score. The mean effect size for the r index ranged from 0·29 when weighted by sample size to 0·35 when unweighted, indicating a moderate relationship between maternal depression and child behaviour problems. Children between the ages of 1–18 whose mothers were depressed displayed more conduct behaviour problems than children whose mothers were not depressed. The magnitude of this relationship covaried significantly with the predictors of sample size and quality index scores. Implications for future research are addressed.