No abstract

The authors sought to assess the perception of risks for coronary heart disease (CHD) in college men and women. They surveyed 470 undergraduates from 2 major 4-year institutions who completed a questionnaire that measured perceived risks for heart disease. Sixty-eight percent of the respondents rated their risks as lower or much lower than those of their peers, indicating a clear optimistic bias. The research also revealed that the students who exercised regularly rated their risk of coronary disease lower than those who did not do so. In addition, women perceived a number of risk markers to be more potent or causative factors than men did. A significant number of participants did not comprehend commonly understood causal relationships associated with heart disease risk. The findings in this preliminary investigation suggest that college men and women do not accurately perceive their risks for developing heart disease.

The expressed affect of clinically depressed and nondepressed mothers as measured by the Schedule for Affective Disorders and Schizophrenia: Lifetime Version (SADS-L) and their children (1 1/2 to 3 1/2 years) was observed in seminatural situations. The objectives were to investigate how maternal depression enters into affective interactions between mother and child and how the affect patterns of mother and child are related. Forty-nine unipolar and 24 bipolar depressed mothers and 45 nondepressed mothers were observed on 2 days, 2 weeks apart, for a total of 5 h. Each minute was coded for the predominant affect of mother and child. Affects relevant to depression (anxious--said, irritable--angry, downcast, pleasant, tender-affectionate) were coded. Depressed mothers expressed significantly more negative affect than did control mothers. Mothers' expressed affect and their self-reports of affect on days of observation were unrelated. Mother's and child's affects, measured on different days, were significantly correlated. Unipolar mothers and mothers severely depressed spent significantly more time in prolonged bouts of negative affect. There was significant synchrony between their bouts and the negative bouts of their daughters. Gender of child was related to mother's and child's affect, and to relations between mother's and child's affect.

The objective of the study was to determine whether the frequency and severity of sleep problems were greater in children of affectively ill mothers than in children of control mothers. Sleep problems were studied in children of mothers with a diagnosis of unipolar (N = 38) and bipolar (N = 23) affective illness and children of mothers with no current or past psychiatric diagnosis (N = 24). Mothers' reports on the Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL) were obtained three times, 4 years apart, on sibling pairs (ages 1.5-3.5 and 5-8 years, respectively, at first assessment). In addition, on the third assessment, the Diagnostic Interview for Children and Adolescents was filled out by mothers and children. In both siblings, sleep problems, as assessed through the CBCL, were more frequent and severe in children of affectively ill mothers. In younger siblings, the persistence of sleep problems was more frequent in children of affectively ill mothers. Co-occurrence of sleep problems among siblings was more frequent in children of affectively ill mothers than in those of control mothers.

The role of attachment in interaction with other relationships and conditions was investigated in relation to children's later psychosocial development (at ages 6 and 9). Thirty-nine unipolar depressed mothers, 24 bipolar mothers, and 32 normal control mothers and their children were studied. The network of conditions defining early experience included, in addition to attachment, maternal psychopathology, marital discord, other disordered relationships in the family, and recent losses of significant persons. Patterns of mother-child interaction were also examined. Assessments of children's problems were based on psychiatric evaluations of depressive affect, anxiety, and disruptive-oppositional behavior.The findings support the conclusion that attachment enters into development in interaction with other relationships and conditions. Maternal psychopathology, in particular, in interaction with the attachment relationship, is linked to later developmental outcomes. The importance of considering mother-child interactional and dispositional characteristics is indicated. The early attachment relationship together with the ways in which the mother's depression is expressed with her child, and the child's style of coping with the mother's functioning establish patterns of behavior that influence the child's vulnerability to later problems. Multiple pathways of transmission of affective problems are discussed.