Although a cycle of harsh and abusive parenting has been recognized for decades, this cycle is not inevitable. Indeed, the mechanisms underlying such patterns, and the resources parents may access to disrupt this cycle, require further study. Research investigating those processes has either relied on cross-sectional designs or largely assessed mediators or moderators at one time point. The current investigation of parent-child aggression (PCA) risk utilized a longitudinal design to consider possible mediators and moderators across three time points. Mothers and fathers reported on their personal history of physical and psychological abuse during the last trimester of the mother's pregnancy; their PCA risk was assessed concurrently when their child was 6 months and when their child was 18 months. Current findings support several mediators for mothers, although fewer for fathers, prenatally, but mediation was not observed across time. Similarly, several moderators of the effect of personal history of physical and psychological aggression on PCA risk were identified prenatally but not across time. Thus, several qualities believed to account for, or mitigate, the intergenerational transmission of PCA may not be consistent-underscoring the continued need to identify factors that account for the cyclical process versus what may interrupt intergenerational transmission.

Background: Although children’s depressive and anxious symptoms have been broadly construed as internalizing problems, the current study sought to identify factors that may differentially contribute to these two mental health problems in a high-risk sample. Prior research has not adequately tested both depressive versus anxious symptoms simultaneously, nor has it adequately considered the role of negative versus positive parenting simultaneously, thereby neglecting the potential overlap in both sets of constructs. Overlooking such potential statistical overlap obfuscates how factors may differentially contribute to either depressive versus anxious symptoms. Existing research has also focused on lower-risk community samples. Method: The present study investigated whether children’s negative self-concept or maladaptive attributional style mediated the link between both negative and positive parenting in a racially diverse, at-risk sample of 65 primary school-age children recruited from mental health agencies. Results: When tested together, more negative parenting, but not less positive parenting, retained direct effects on both depressive and anxious symptoms. Both negative self-concept and maladaptive attributional style fully mediated the association between less positive parenting and children’s depressive symptoms, whereas positive self-concept, but not attributional style, mediated between less positive parenting and anxious symptoms. Conclusions: The current findings underscore potential differential intervention targets for these two internalizing problems and highlight the need for future research to consider both depressive and anxious symptoms, and related predictors, simultaneously to control for their shared variance.

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IntroductionThe proportion of elderly people and affective syndromes are more and more common in developed countries. Elderly people have physiological conditions that may limit our intervention.ObjectivesTo present a case of a major depressive disorder with psychotic symptoms in a 72-year-old woman.MethodsMedline search and review of the clinical history and the related literature.ResultsWe present the case of a 72-year-old woman with psychiatric history of a major depressive disorder 14 years ago with ad integrum restitution after pharmacological treatment. In 2015, our patient was admitted to the psychiatry ward due to major depressive symptomatology (apathy, anhedonia, global insomnia, weight loss) that associated mood-congruent delusions (nihilistic, ruin, guilt, catastrophic) with deregulated behaviour. The patient was resistant to combined pharmacological treatment with aripiprazole, desvenlafaxine, mirtazapine and lorazepam, therefore, we decided to administer ECT, with successful results after 5 sessions. Brain tomography, blood and urine tests were normal. Clinical signs of dementia were not present.ConclusionsInpatients with deregulated behaviour; it is important to rule out organic causes, especially in elderly, in whom dementia, brain tumors or metabolic disturbances may simulate psychiatric syndromes.Disclosure of interestThe authors have not supplied their declaration of competing interest.