WHAT'S KNOWN ON THIS SUBJECT: Paternal mental disorders during the postnatal period are associated with an increased risk for behavioral and emotional problems in their children; however, less is known about the effect of fathers' mental health during pregnancy on children' s development. WHAT THIS STUDY ADDS:The study demonstrated a positive association between fathers' prenatal mental health and their children' s subsequent socioemotional and behavioral development. Psychological distress in fathers was associated with a risk for emotional difficulties in their children at 36 months of age. abstract OBJECTIVE: To examine the association between symptoms of psychological distress in expectant fathers and socioemotional and behavioral outcomes in their children at age 36 months. METHODS:The current study is based on data from the Norwegian Mother and Child Cohort Study on 31 663 children. Information about fathers' mental health was obtained by self-report (Hopkins Symptom Checklist) in week 17 or 18 of gestation. Information about mothers' pre-and postnatal mental health and children' s socioemotional and behavioral development at 36 months of age was obtained from parent-report questionnaires. Linear multiple regression and logistic regression models were performed while controlling for demographics, lifestyle variables, and mothers' mental health.RESULTS: Three percent of the fathers had high levels of psychological distress. Using linear regression models, we found a small positive association between fathers' psychological distress and children' s behavioral difficulties, B = 0.19 (95% confidence interval [CI] = 0.15-0.23); emotional difficulties, B = 0.22 (95% CI = 0.18-0.26); and social functioning, B = 0.12 (95% CI = 0.07-0.16). The associations did not change when adjusted for relevant confounders. Children whose fathers had high levels of psychological distress had higher levels of emotional and behavioral problems.CONCLUSIONS: This study suggests that some risk of future child emotional, behavioral, and social problems can be identified during pregnancy. The findings are of importance for clinicians and policy makers in their planning of health care in the perinatal period because this represents a significant opportunity for preventive intervention. Ms Kvalevaag has made a substantial contribution to concept and design of the study and to the analysis and interpretation of data. She is the first author of the manuscript and thus has drafted it and has been responsible for coordinating the communication between coauthors in all stages of the work. Dr Ramchandani made a substantial contribution to the development of research questions and hypotheses and made suggestions for analyses to be performed. He thoroughly revised the manuscript several times and approved of the final version of the manuscript. Dr Hove contributed to the concept and design of the study, development of research questions and hypotheses, and interpretation of results. He critically revised the manuscript, including the final versi...
This study examines the association between expectant parents' psychological distress and children's development at 36 months old. This is a prospective population study based on the Norwegian Mother and Child Cohort Study, N = 31,663. Logistic regression models were used to assess whether high scores (cutoff ≥ 2.00) on the symptom checklist-5 in parents predicted higher levels (cutoff ≥ 90 percentile) of developmental problems in their children. The risk of emotional and behavioral problems were significantly increased in children when both parents were affected by psychological distress during pregnancy, fully adjusted OR 2.35 (95% CI 1.36, 4.07) and OR 2.65 (96% CI 1.564.48), respectively. The risk was higher when mothers reported high level of psychological distress than when only the fathers did, but the risk of emotional difficulties in children was highest when both parents presented high levels of psychological distress, indicating an additive effect of parental psychological distress.
Aim To study the association between paternal mental health and physically aggressive behavior in children. MethodsThis study is based on 19,580 father-child dyads from the Norwegian Mother and Child Cohort Study (MoBa). Fathers' mental health was assessed by self-report (Symptom Checklist-5, SCL-5) in week 17 or 18 of gestation. Children's behavior (hitting others) was obtained by mothers' reports. A multinomial logistic regression model was performed. ResultsExpectant fathers' high level of psychological distress was found to be a significant risk factor only for girls hitting, adjusted OR=1.46 (1.01-2.12), p=0.043, but not for boys. ConclusionHigh levels of mental distress in fathers predict their daughters' hitting at five years of age.3
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