Premium
Maternal Depressive Symptoms and Depressive Symptoms in Adolescents
Author(s) -
Fergusson David M.,
Horwood L. John,
Lynskey Michael T.
Publication year - 1995
Publication title -
journal of child psychology and psychiatry
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 3.652
H-Index - 211
eISSN - 1469-7610
pISSN - 0021-9630
DOI - 10.1111/j.1469-7610.1995.tb01363.x
Subject(s) - psychology , depression (economics) , depressive symptoms , marital status , psychiatry , clinical psychology , developmental psychology , demography , cognition , population , sociology , economics , macroeconomics
The relationship between maternal depressive symptoms and rates of adolescent (15–16 years) depressive symptoms was studied in a birth cohort of 934 New Zealand children. There was a clear correlation between maternal depressive symptoms and subsequent depressive symptoms in adolescent females (r= .44) but no association (r= ‐.01) between maternal depressive symptoms and depressive symptoms in adolescent males. Subsequent analysis suggested that the correlation between maternal depression and depressive symptoms in adolescent females was largely explained by the associations of both measures with a series of social and contextual factors including social disadvantage, marital discord and family adversity. It is concluded that maternal depression is only associated with depression in adolescence insofar as maternal depression is associated /with social disadvantage, marital discord or family adversity.