A Longitudinal Study of Maltreated and Comparison Adolescents: The Relationship of Maternal Depression to Adolescents' Emotions and Behavior

Background: Many studies have found maternal depression is related to both externalizing and internalizing problems in young children and adolescents.   However, little has been done to understand how the addition of a history of child maltreatment may influence these relationships. The present study addressed those combined risk factors by examining the longitudinal relationship between maternal depression and internalizing and externalizing symptoms in a sample of maltreated and comparison adolescents over three time points. 

Methods: This analysis used data from an on-going longitudinal study of youth with documented maltreatment and a comparison group from the same urban community. The data was collected from both 176 adolescents (87 maltreated and 89 comparison) and their biological mothers at three time points: Time 1 when the adolescents were an average of 11 years old; Time 2 when they were an average of 12 years old, and Time 3 when they were an average of 14 years old. Maternal depression was measured using the depression subscale of the Brief Symptom Inventory. The adolescents’ aggression and rule-breaking scores were obtained from the Youth Self-Report and the child’s depressive score was obtained from the Children's Depression Inventory. All measures were used as continuous variables. A cross-lagged path analysis was conducted with the full sample to identify the relationship between maternal depression and adolescent behaviors over time. Next, multiple group models were used to test sex (male/female) and maltreatment status (maltreatment/comparison) as moderators.

Results: The biological mother’s depressive symptoms at Time 2 were positively related to the child’s depressive symptoms at Time 3 (β=0.217; p<.05). This relationship was not moderated by gender or by maltreatment status. The mother’s depressive symptoms at Time 2 were also positively associated with the female adolescents’ aggression score at Time 3(β=0.257; p<.05).This relationship was only for female adolescents, and was not significant for the entire sample, males, or the maltreated or comparison groups.

Conclusions and Implications: In this study, the relationship between maternal depression and adolescent psychosocial behaviors was significant when the adolescents averaged 14 years old. Maternal depression predicted boys' and girls' subsequent depression but only girls’ aggression.  There were no differences between the maltreated adolescents and comparison adolescents for the relationship between maternal depression and adolescent internalizing or externalizing behaviors. Adolescent girls may be especially sensitive to their mother’s depression and react with more acting-out behaviors.  These longitudinal findings indicate that when providing mental health services to adolescents, social workers should also address the mental health of their mothers.