Differential Reporting of Adolescent Stress as a Function of Maternal Depression History

Abstract

The depression–distortion hypothesis posits that depressed mothers report child characteristics in a negatively-biased manner, motivating research on discrepant reporting between depressed mothers and their children. However, the literature has predominately focused on report discrepancies of youth psychopathological and behavioral outcomes, with limited focus on youth stress despite the marked increase of stressful events during adolescence. The current study investigated whether the presence versus absence of a maternal history of major depressive disorder differentially influenced reporting of adolescent stress when compared to her child’s report, utilizing a community sample of diverse adolescents. As hypothesized, mothers with a history of depression were more likely to report more youth stress than their children reported. Specifically, mothers with a history of depression were more likely than nondepressed mothers to report more familial, social, and youth-dependent stressors relative to their children; nondepressed mothers were more likely to report less independent stressors than their children.

Are measures of marital satisfaction valid for women with depressive symptoms? The examination of factor structure and measurement invariance of the Couple Satisfaction Index‐4 across depression levels in Portuguese women

“…Our findings suggest that interpretation of item content and their expectations and reporting standards for MS did not differ between individuals with elevated depressive symptoms and individuals with minimal depressive symptoms, in contrast with the depression–distortion hypothesis (Richters & Pellegrini, 2010). In particular, this hypothesis postulates that dysphoric emotions associated with depression activate a negative perceptual bias in the individuals' ratings of a target construct (e.g., children's behaviour problems and MS) that, in turn, leads to overreporting of difficulties in that variable of interest (Daryanani et al, ). Despite that depression–distortion bias was documented in mothers' reports of child behaviour problems (Daryanani et al, ), no empirical evidence was however found of a similar pattern of findings in MS in our study.…”

“…In particular, this hypothesis postulates that dysphoric emotions associated with depression activate a negative perceptual bias in the individuals' ratings of a target construct (e.g., children's behaviour problems and MS) that, in turn, leads to overreporting of difficulties in that variable of interest (Daryanani et al, ). Despite that depression–distortion bias was documented in mothers' reports of child behaviour problems (Daryanani et al, ), no empirical evidence was however found of a similar pattern of findings in MS in our study.…”

Future Research Directions in the Positive Valence Systems: Measurement, Development, and Implications for Youth Unipolar Depression

“…Key to these distinctions are dependent interpersonal stressors, which are events that are elicited by the behavior of an individual. Recently, Daryanani et al (in press) found that depressed mothers reported that their adolescent offspring experienced greater amounts of dependent life stressors than non-depressed mothers. Thus, there may be compounding influences of family history of depression with experience of adolescent dependent social life stress.…”

Caregiver self-reports and reporting of their preschoolers’ trauma exposure: Discordance across assessment methods.

“…For example, researchers have examined whether the presence of maternal psychopathology may affect reporting of children’s experiences. Some have found that maternal depression or anxiety was associated with over-reporting of child internalizing symptoms (Frick, Silverthorn, & Evans, 1994; Kroes, Veerman, & De Bruyn, 2003) and externalizing symptoms (Briggs-Gowan, Carter, & Schwab-Stone, 1996), as well as adolescent stress (Daryanani et al, 2015). Conversely, others have shown that maternal depression was associated with more accurate reporting of child conduct problems (Querido, Eyberg, & Boggs, 2001).…”