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Transdiagnostic and disorder-specific models of intergenerational transmission of internalizing pathology

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 May 2013

L. R. Starr ,
C. C. Conway ,
C. L. Hammen  and
P. A. Brennan
L. R. Starr*
Affiliation:
University of California, Los Angeles, CA, USA
C. C. Conway
Affiliation:
University of California, Los Angeles, CA, USA
C. L. Hammen
Affiliation:
University of California, Los Angeles, CA, USA
P. A. Brennan
Affiliation:
Emory University, Atlanta, GA, USA
*
* Address for correspondence: L. R. Starr, Ph.D., Department of Psychology, UCLA, 1285 Franz Hall, Box 951563, Los Angeles, CA 90095-1563, USA. (Email: lstarr@ucla.edu)
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Abstract

Background

Numerous studies have supported an association between maternal depression and child psychiatric outcomes, but few have controlled for the confounding effects of both maternal and offspring co-morbidity. Thus, it remains unclear whether the correspondence between maternal and offspring depressive and anxiety disorders is better explained by associations between shared features of maternal and offspring internalizing disorders or by specific effects exerted by unique aspects of individual disorders.

Method

Pairs of mothers and offspring overselected for maternal depression (n = 815) were assessed at offspring age 15 years for anxiety and depressive disorders; 705 completed a follow-up at offspring age 20 years. For both mothers and offspring, structural equation modeling was used to distinguish transdiagnostic internalizing pathology – representing the overlap among all depressive and anxiety disorders – from diagnosis-specific forms of pathology. To discriminate between general versus specific pathways of intergenerational transmission of psychopathology, we examined (a) the general association between the maternal and offspring internalizing factors and (b) the correlations between maternal and offspring diagnosis-specific pathology for each disorder.

Results

For mothers and offspring, a unidimensional latent variable model provided the best fit to the correlations among depressive and anxiety disorders. The maternal transdiagnostic internalizing factor strongly predicted the corresponding factor among offspring. In addition, the unique component of post-traumatic stress disorder among offspring was significantly related to the analogous unique component among mothers, but specific components of other maternal disorders, including depression, did not predict corresponding offspring pathology.

Conclusions

Results suggest that intergenerational transmission of internalizing disorders is largely non-specific.

Keywords

Intergenerational transmissioninternalizing disordersmaternal anxiety disordersmaternal depression
Type
Original Articles
Information
Psychological Medicine , Volume 44 , Issue 1 , January 2014 , pp. 161 - 172
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2013 

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