Diagnostic Specificity of a Brief Measure of Expressed Emotion: a Community Study of Children

Abstract

The association between expressed emotion (EE) and psychiatric disorders was investigated in a community survey of 108 preadolescent children. Results indicated that the two components of EE, critical comments and emotional overinvolvement, identified non-overlapping subsets of families and displayed diagnostic specificity. Significantly higher rates of disruptive behavior diagnoses were observed in children of parents who expressed high levels of criticism, while children of parents who expressed high levels of emotional overinvolvement were significantly more likely to have an anxiety disorder when compared to the remaining sample. Findings support the utility of this brief measure of EE in epidemiologic samples.

Parent-Child Interactions in Relation to Critical and Emotionally Overinvolved Expressed Emotion (EE): Is EE a Proxy for Behavior?

“…These results converge with the findings of other researchers (e.g., Stubbe et al, 1993; in suggesting that CRIT be used separately from EOI, rather than collapsed into the broader measure of EE as most studies have done. As Chambless and colleagues state in their discussion (1999), "Combining separate and unrelated constructs into a single variable before such a composite variable has been demonstrated to be warranted in a given sample risks muddying the results of prediction analyses" (p. 74).…”

“…Despite low interrater agreement, we did find modest relations in the expected directions between the EOI observational codes and the CRPBI (particularly the parent-report version). It is recommended that replication and extension of these findings be produced to and in weighing the relative plausibility of each of these explanations.These results converge with the findings of other researchers (e.g., Stubbe et al, 1993; in suggesting that CRIT be used separately from EOI, rather than collapsed into the broader measure of EE as most studies have done. As Chambless and colleagues state in their discussion (1999), "Combining separate and unrelated constructs into a single variable before such a composite variable has been demonstrated to be warranted in a given sample risks muddying the results of prediction analyses" (p. 74).…”

“…Commonly, EE is measured using the Five-Minute Speech Sample (Magana et al, 1986) wherein caregivers are asked to describe their child and their relationship with him/her and responses are coded for two different components of EE-criticism (CRIT) and emotional overinvolvement (EOI), with a high score on either indicating a "High EE profile." Despite this convention, researchers have recently favored dismantling the overarching EE construct into its separate CRIT and EOI components, particularly in child samples (Hirshfeld, Biederman, Brody, & Faraone, 1997;McCarty & Weisz, 2002;Stubbe et al, 1993;Wamboldt, O'Connor, Wamboldt, Gavin, & Klinnert, 2000). Because the two components of EE are intended to measure distinct parental attitudes, they should, in theory, be associated with different behaviors.…”

Disentangling Child and Family Influences on Maternal Expressed Emotion Toward Children With Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder

“…2 Traditionally, individuals are classified as high in EE if they make more than a specified threshold number of critical comments or show any signs of hostility or marked emotional overinvolvement 2 . In general, parental EE shows both concurrent [3][4][5] and longitudinal 6 associations with internalizing and externalizing problems in child and adolescent community and clinical samples. More specifically, parental EE (especially criticism) is associated with their children's ADHD.…”

The Reliability and Validity Study of Shortened Level of Expressed Emotion Scale in Adolescents

“…7,8 DD'si yüksek olan ailelerde, DD'si düşük olan ailelerin çocuklarına göre herhangi bir psikiyatrik tanı olasılığının beş kat daha yüksek olduğu saptanmıştır. 9 Jacobson, Hibbs ve Ziegenhain yüksek DD'yi çocuklardaki dezorganize bağlanma örüntü-leriyle ilişkili bulmuştur. 10 Caspi ve ark., 565 monozigot ikiz çift ve anneleriyle yaptıkları çalışmada, annenin DD'si ile çocuklardaki antisosyal davranışların ilişki gösterdiğini bildirmişlerdir.…”