Heritable, Environmental, and Timing Effects on the Intergenerational Transmission of Anxiety and Depressive Symptoms in Early Adolescence
Open Access
- Author:
- Chen, Tong
- Graduate Program:
- Psychology
- Degree:
- Master of Science
- Document Type:
- Master Thesis
- Date of Defense:
- June 10, 2020
- Committee Members:
- Jenae Marie Neiderhiser, Thesis Advisor/Co-Advisor
Kristin Ann Buss, Committee Member
Peter Cm Molenaar, Committee Member
Kristin Ann Buss, Program Head/Chair - Keywords:
- anxiety and depressive symptoms
timing
sensitive periods
adoption
adolescence
anxiety and depressive symptoms
timing
sensitive periods
adoption
adolescence - Abstract:
- Parental anxiety and depressive symptoms have been associated with similar problems in children and adolescents. Therefore, it is important to understand the mechanisms of this transmission to help with prevention of anxiety and depressive symptoms in children and adolescents. The present study examined heritable, prenatal and postnatal environmental influences on early adolescent anxiety and depressive symptoms, with a focus on whether different timing of exposure to parent symptoms confers different levels of risk. Participants included 561 families from the Early Growth and Development Study (EGDS), a prospective parent-offspring adoption design. Heritable risk was indexed by birth mother and father lifetime internalizing problems, prenatal risk was measured by birth mother internalizing problems during pregnancy. Adoptive father and mother anxiety and depressive symptoms were assessed from child ages 9 months to 11 years and were modeled by the latent trait-state-occasion model to examine the potential timing effects of exposure. Adolescent anxiety and depressive symptoms were assessed at 11 years, child anxiety and depressive symptoms at age 4.5 were included in the analyses as controls. Results suggested that maternal anxiety and depressive symptoms at child age 9 months was associated with child anxiety and depressive symptoms at 4.5 years, which in turn was associated with adolescent anxiety and depressive symptoms at 11 years. Maternal anxiety and depressive symptoms at 11 years was associated with adolescent anxiety and depressive symptoms concurrently. Neither heritable or prenatal risk was associated with child or adolescent anxiety and depressive symptoms. Paternal anxiety and depressive symptoms were not associated with offspring symptoms. Results support a sensitive period model for exposure to maternal anxiety and depressive symptoms and provide implications for prevention to focus on within-person changes of maternal symptoms during the postnatal period and early adolescence.