Who Participates in an Internet-Based Research Program for Mothers of Infants? A Secondary Prevention Research Study Among Low-Income Families

Objective: The objective of this study was to evaluate the participation rates and factors associated with nonparticipation among mothers living in low-income households who were invited to join a parent-education and -support research program delivered via the Internet with professional support. Methods: Four hundred and seventy-seven mothers of infants were contacted via a variety of recruitment methods, including presentations at clinics/classes, direct mailings, print advertisement, and Internet posts. Research staff attempted to contact these mothers by phone, to assess their eligibility, and interest in participation. For those who were eligible but declined participation, we assessed reasons for declining and collected demographic information. Results: Seventy-four percent of those eligible agreed to participate in the program. Statistical tests comparing participants and decliners on demographic variables found no significant differences on mother’s age and marital status. There was a significant difference on baby’s age due to many decliners in the prenatal period. Mothers were an average age of 28 years and most were married (65.6%). Our sample of low-income participants was diverse with a large number of Latina mothers. Approximately half had a high-school diploma or less but 84% reported being moderately or very comfortable using a computer and half had a computer at home

The impact of depression on mothers’ neural processing of their adolescents’ affective behavior

12 pagesDepression affects neural processing of emotional stimuli and could, therefore, impact parent–child interactions. However, the neural processes with which mothers with depression process their adolescents’ affective interpersonal signals and how this relates to mothers’ parenting behavior are poorly understood. Mothers with and without depression (N = 64 and N = 51, respectively; Mage = 40 years) from low-income families completed an interaction task with their adolescents (Mage = 12.8 years), which was coded for both individuals’ aggressive, dysphoric, positive and neutral affective behavior. While undergoing fMRI, mothers viewed video clips from this task of affective behavior from their own and an unfamiliar adolescent. Relative to non-depressed mothers, those with depression showed more aggressive and less positive affective behavior during the interaction task and more activation in the bilateral insula, superior temporal gyrus and striatum but less in the lateral prefrontal cortex while viewing aggressive and neutral affect. Findings were comparable for own and unfamiliar adolescents’ affect. Heightened limbic, striatal and sensory responses were associated with more aggressive and dysphoric parenting behavior during the interactions, while reduced lateral prefrontal activation was associated with less positive parenting behavior. These results highlight the importance of depressed mothers’ affective information processing for understanding mothers’ behavior during interactions with their adolescents.This research was supported by a grant from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (5R01HD081362-05) awarded to L.S. and N.B.A. The funding sources had no role in the study design, data collection and analysis, or submission process

Language use in depressed and non-depressed mothers and their adolescent offspring

BackgroundApproximately 10% of mothers experience depression each year, which increases risk for depression in offspring. Currently no research has analysed the linguistic features of depressed mothers and their adolescent offspring during dyadic interactions. We examined the extent to which linguistic features of mothers’ and adolescents’ speech during dyadic interactional tasks could discriminate depressed from non-depressed mothers.MethodsComputer-assisted linguistic analysis (Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count; LIWC) was applied to transcripts of low-income mother-adolescent dyads (N=151) performing a lab-based problem-solving interaction task. One-way multivariate analyses were conducted to determine linguistic features hypothesized to be related to maternal depressive status that significantly differed in frequency between depressed and non-depressed mothers and higher and lower risk offspring. Logistic regression analyses were performed to classify between dyads belonging to the two groups.Results The results showed that linguistic features in mothers’ and their adolescent offsprings’ speech during problem-solving interactions discriminated between maternal depression status. Many, but not all effects, were consistent with those identified in previous research using primarily written text, highlighting the validity and reliability of language behaviour associated with depressive symptomatology across lab-based and natural environmental contexts.LimitationsOur analyses do not enable to ascertain how mothers’ language behaviour may have influenced their offspring’s communication patterns. We also cannot say how or whether these findings generalize to other contexts or populations.ConclusionThe findings extend the existing literature on linguistic features of depression by indicating that mothers’ depression is associated with linguistic behaviour during mother-adolescent interaction.<br/

Affective and Autonomic Reactivity During Parent-Child Interactions in Depressed and Non-Depressed Mothers and Their Adolescent Offspring

Objective: Determine how depressed mothers and their adolescent offspring differ in affective and autonomic reactivity during positive and negative parent-adolescent interactions. Methods: In this multi-method case-control study of 180 mother-adolescent dyads (50% mothers depressed, 50% mothers non-depressed) we collected self-reported positive and negative affect, as well as measures of cardiovascular and electrodermal autonomic activity during two mother-adolescent interaction tasks designed to differentially elicit positive (Event-Planning Interaction; EPI) and negative (Problem-Solving Interaction; PSI) affect. Results: Findings indicated that both depressed mothers and their adolescent offspring exhibited greater self-reported negative affect reactivity during the negative interaction and blunted sympathetic activity as measured via skin conductance level across both positive and negative interactions. These effects persisted after controlling for a range of potential covariates, including medication use, sex, age, adolescents own mental health symptoms, and behavior of the other interactant and results remained after correcting for multiple comparisons. Conclusion: These findings indicate that depressed mothers and their adolescent offspring exhibit similar patterning during parent-child interactions, including increased negative affect reactivity during negative interactions and blunted sympathetic activity across both positive and negative interactions. These findings have potential implications for understanding the role of family processes in the intergenerational transmission of risk for depressive disorders

Psychobiological Markers of Allostatic Load in Depressed and Non-Depressed Mothers and Their Adolescent Offspring

Importance: Most prior research examining the impact of maternal depression on offspring has been limited in the following ways: 1) focused only on families with young (i.e., prepubescent) children, 2) constrained within one domain (e.g., psychological, behavioral, or biological), and 3) lacked simultaneous investigation of the impact maternal depression has on both mother and offspring health. The current study addresses these limitations by simultaneously examining multiple psychobiological markers of allostatic load across cardiovascular indices, inflammation, cellular aging, and measures of behavioral health in depressed and non-depressed mothers as well as their adolescent offspring, which have important implications for understanding the mechanisms underlying the association between mental and physical health. Objective: Simultaneously investigate autonomic, sympathetic, and parasympathetic cardiac control, inflammation, and cellular aging differences between depressed and non-depressed mothers as well as their adolescent offspring. Design, Setting, and Participants: A case-control study of 180 low-income mother and adolescent dyads (50% mothers depressed, 50% mothers non-depressed) was conducted in a laboratory setting. Main Outcomes and Measures: Mental health symptoms, autonomic cardiac control, inflammation, and cellular aging. Results: Overall, findings indicate that both depressed mothers and their adolescent offspring systematically differ in terms of comorbid mental and physical health risk profiles that are suggestive of higher allostatic load. Findings indicate that depressed mothers exhibit elevated resting heart rate and decreased heart-rate variability, while adolescent offspring of depressed mothers also exhibit greater mental health symptoms, elevated heart rate, and accelerated biological aging (shorter telomeres). These effects persisted after controlling for a range of potential covariates, including medication use, sex, age, and adolescent mental health symptoms. Conclusions and Relevance: These findings indicate that maternal depression is associated with indices of increased allostatic load in both depressed women and their adolescent children, possibly increasing risk for early onset of psychiatric conditions and disease in these offspring

Getting stuck in depression: The roles of rumination and emotional inertia

Like many other mental disorders, depression is characterised by psychological inflexibility. Two instances of such inflexibility are rumination: repetitive cognitions focusing on the causes and consequences of depressive symptoms; and emotional inertia: the tendency for affective states to be resistant to change. In two studies, we tested the predictions that: (1) rumination and emotional inertia are related; and (2) both independently contribute to depressive symptoms. We examined emotional inertia of subjective affective experiences in daily life among a sample of non-clinical undergraduates (Study 1), and of affective behaviours during a family interaction task in a sample of clinically depressed and non-depressed adolescents (Study 2), and related it to self-reported rumination and depression severity. In both studies, rumination (particularly the brooding facet) and emotional inertia (particularly of sad/dysphoric affect) were positively associated, and both independently predicted depression severity. These findings demonstrate the importance of studying both cognitive and affective inflexibility in depression

A hierarchical state space approach to affective dynamics

Linear dynamical system theory is a broad theoretical framework that has been applied in various research areas such as engineering, econometrics and recently in psychology. It quantifies the relations between observed inputs and outputs that are connected through a set of latent state variables. State space models are used to investigate the dynamical properties of these latent quantities. These models are especially of interest in the study of emotion dynamics, with the system representing the evolving emotion components of an individual. However, for simultaneous modeling of individual and population differences, a hierarchical extension of the basic state space model is necessary. Therefore, we introduce a Bayesian hierarchical model with random effects for the system parameters. Further, we apply our model to data that were collected using the Oregon adolescent interaction task: 66 normal and 67 depressed adolescents engaged in a conflict-oriented interaction with their parents and second-to-second physiological and behavioral measures were obtained. System parameters in normal and depressed adolescents were compared, which led to interesting discussions in the light of findings in recent literature on the links between cardiovascular processes, emotion dynamics and depression. We illustrate that our approach is flexible and general: The model can be applied to any time series for multiple systems (where a system can represent any entity) and moreover, one is free to focus on various components of this versatile model.status: publishe