Abstract: Violence Exposure, Child Asthma Morbidity, and Maternal Depressive Symptoms: A Longitudinal Analysis of Cumulative Risk (Society for Social Work and Research 26th Annual Conference - Social Work Science for Racial, Social, and Political Justice)

Schedule:

Sunday, January 16, 2022

Independence BR A, ML 4 (Marriott Marquis Washington, DC)

* noted as presenting author

Melissa Bellin, PhD, Associate Professor, University of Maryland at Baltimore, Baltimore, MD

Laura Whitney, MSW, Graduate Research Assistant, University of Maryland, Baltimore, Baltimore, MD

Rachel H.F. Margolis, PhD, Post-Doc Fellow, Children's National Hospital, DC

Philip Osteen, PhD, Associate Professor, University of Utah, UT

Arlene Butz, ScD, Professor of Pediatrics, The Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD

Anna Thompson, BSW, Research Assistant, University of Maryland at Baltimore

Low-income mothers of children with uncontrolled asthma are an underserved population at risk for psychological distress. We examined the impact of violence exposure and child asthma morbidity on depressive symptoms in mothers of youths with uncontrolled asthma. Asthma symptoms and health care utilization, socio-demographics, and standardized measures of depressive symptoms and violence exposure were ascertained by self-report. Latent Growth Curve Modeling tested the associations of violence and asthma morbidity with depressive symptoms at baseline (T1), six-months (T2) and 12-months (T3). Participating mothers (N=276) reported high baseline violence exposure (59.5%) and depressive symptoms (34.4%); nearly a quarter (n=62) had clinically significant depressive symptoms at 12-months. Violence exposure was consistently associated with maternal depressive symptoms across all three time points (T1:β=.32, p<.05;T2:β=.28, p<.05;T3:β=.18, p<.05). Individual indicators of child asthma morbidity were non-significant, but the cumulative effect of asthma morbidity was predictive of higher caregiver depressive symptoms at T2(β=.09, p<.05) and T3(β=.13, p<.05). Findings underscore the importance of holistic risk assessment and social work interventions to ameliorate the chronic distress observed in mothers of youths with uncontrolled asthma.