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Abstract

This study uses information collected on two occasions from a probability sample of families with 5- to 12-year-old children (N = 1151) participating in a general population study in 1983 and follow-up in 1987. It evaluated the importance of maternal bias in the assessment of child behavior by comparing the relative strengths of association between maternal depression and childhood behavior and between maternal depression and mother reporting errors. Conduct problems and hyperactivity were measured as latent criterion variables constructed from mother, teacher, and youth (aged 12 to 16 years) ratings and their associations with maternal depression were modeled using covariance structure analysis. The analyses revealed that maternal depression was associated significantly with conduct problems (phi = .35) and hyperactivity (phi = .38) among 5- to 7-years-olds in 1983 but not 4 years later in 1987. None of the associations between maternal depression and mother reporting errors were significant. Among 8- to 12-year-olds in 1983, maternal depression was associated significantly not only with conduct problems (phi = .17) and hyperactivity (phi = .15) but also with mother rating errors of these behaviors (psi = .13 and .17, respectively). Four years later in 1987 when this cohort was 12 to 16 years old, the only significant association was between maternal depression and conduct disorder (phi = .25). Although evidence exists for associations between maternal depressed mood and mother rating errors, there also appears to be a substantive association between maternal depression and childhood behavior.

Associations between Disorder-Specific Symptoms of Anxiety and Error-Monitoring Brain Activity in Young Children

“…First, disorder-specific symptoms of anxiety were assessed using a parent-reported instrument. Several lines of research have highlighted the disadvantages of parent-report methods such as systematic bias based on parental characteristics (De Los Reyes and Kazdin 2005), including maternal psychopathology (e.g., Boyle and Pickles 1997; Durbin and Wilson 2012; Gartstein et al 2009), parental stress (Foley et al 2005) and low socioeconomic status (Duhig et al 2000). 1 Second, while children in this sample exhibited a wide range of disorder-specific symptoms of anxiety, future studies need to extend these findings in clinical samples.…”

The Mediating Effects of Parenting Behaviors on Maternal Affect and Reports of Children’s Behavior

“…Related to this issue of single informants is that much debate continues concerning whether maternal reports of child behavior are accurate when the mother is experiencing depressive symptoms (e.g., Boyle and Pickles 1997;Richters 1992;Baumann et al 2004). Adhering to strict criteria to evaluate the possibility of a distortion hypothesis (e.g., Richters 1992), Baumann and colleagues (2004) found evidence in support of the veracity of maternal reports of behavior, even among mothers experiencing depressive symptomatology.…”

The Effects of Parental Mood on Reports of Their Children’s Psychopathology

“…In a key review of the literature regarding the “depression-distortion hypothesis”, Richters concluded that there was no substantial evidence of bias associated with parental depression 4 . However, subsequent studies showed mixed results: some support Richters’ assertion that parental depression does not significantly influence reports, others report that parents with depression minimally to moderately over-report behavioral problems in their offspring 5-16 , while others suggest that parents with depression report psychopathology in their offspring more accurately than healthy parents 17,18 (see Table 1). …”