A general psychopathology factor (P factor) in children: Structural model analysis and external validation through familial risk and child global executive function.

Abstract

High rates of comorbidities and poor validity of disorder diagnostic criteria for mental disorders hamper advances in mental health research. Recent work has suggested the utility of continuous cross-cutting dimensions, including general psychopathology and specific factors of externalizing and internalizing (e.g., distress and fear) syndromes. The current study evaluated the reliability of competing structural models of psychopathology and examined external validity of the best fitting model on the basis of family risk and child global executive function (EF). A community sample of 8,012 families from Brazil with children ages 6-12 years completed structured interviews about the child and parental psychiatric syndromes, and a subsample of 2,395 children completed tasks assessing EF (i.e., working memory, inhibitory control, and time processing). Confirmatory factor analyses tested a series of structural models of psychopathology in both parents and children. The model with a general psychopathology factor ("P factor") with 3 specific factors (fear, distress, and externalizing) exhibited the best fit. The general P factor accounted for most of the variance in all models, with little residual variance explained by each of the 3 specific factors. In addition, associations between child and parental factors were mainly significant for the P factors and nonsignificant for the specific factors from the respective models. Likewise, the child P factor-but not the specific factors-was significantly associated with global child EF. Overall, our results provide support for a latent overarching P factor characterizing child psychopathology, supported by familial associations and child EF. (PsycINFO Database Record

An Evaluation of the Specificity of Executive Function Impairment in Developmental Psychopathology

“…11,12 In the current study, all EF components were significantly associated with overall psychopathology, except for attentional vigilance. This finding supports prior work suggesting that the type of EF impairment linked to overall psychopathology is widespread and involves multiple components of EF.…”

“…This work suggests that general EF dysfunction is a non-specific correlate of developmental psychoapthology. 11–13 For example, Martel et al 12 found that general EF was negatively associated with a general psychopathology factor, but not with domain-specific externalizing, fear, or distress factors. Shanmugan et al 13 , using a subset of the PNC cohort, reported robust negative associations between a general psychopathology factor and both behavioral and neuroimaging indices of working memory; however, disorder-specific EF perturbations also emerged for psychosis spectrum, externalizing, and anxious-misery factors.…”

Chronic Stress Exposure and Generation Are Related to the P-Factor and Externalizing Specific Psychopathology in Youth

“…This structure has replicated in multiple youth samples (e.g., Castellanos-Ryan et al, 2016; Martel et al, 2017; Neumann et al, 2016; Snyder, Young, & Hankin, 2017; Tackett et al, 2013; Waldman, Poore, van Hulle, Rathouz, & Lahey, 2016). Converging evidence demonstrates the p factor is moderately heritable (Neumann et al, 2016; Waldman et al, 2016), has strong distress-related psychopathology loadings (Waldman et al, 2016) and is associated with negative emotionality (Castellanos-Ryan et al, 2016; Tackett et al, 2013) and poor executive function (Castellanos-Ryan et al, 2016; Huang-Pollock, Shapiro, Galloway-Long, & Weigard, 2016; Martel et al, 2017). Thus, one way to conceptualize the p factor is as shared (partially genetic) liability for psychopathology, characterized by transdiagnostic distress, potentially through the endophenotype of poorly-regulated emotion and cognition (e.g., Beauchaine & Zisner, 2017).…”

Toward a Functional View of the p Factor in Psychopathology

“…Several articles have also linked the p factor to various indicators of poor constraint and impulsivity (Caspi et al, 2014; Castellanos-Ryan et al, 2016). Growing evidence links it to problems with response inhibition, a specific aspect of executive control that has close conceptual and empirical ties to impulsivity (Caspi et al, 2014; Castellanos-Ryan et al, 2016; Martel et al, 2017). The p factor has also been linked to both low agreeableness and low conscientiousness (Caspi et al, 2014; Castellanos-Ryan et al, 2016), both of which, in turn, have been linked in previous work to impulsive responsivity to emotion (Carver et al, 2008).…”