Anna Andreas

Maternal stress and internalizing symptoms in preschoolers: the moderating role of narrative coherence.

In the present study, we examined whether maternal psychosocial stress and childrens coherence in story-stem narratives are associated with preschool childrens internalizing symptoms and disorders, and whether narrative coherence moderates the association between maternal stress and childrens internalizing symptoms and disorders. The sample consists of 236 preschool children (129 girls, 107 boys; Mage = 5.15 years) and their mothers. Mothers completed questionnaires on their psychosocial stress burden and on child symptoms. A diagnostic interview (the Preschool Age Psychiatric Assessment; Egger & Angold, 2004) was conducted with one of the parents to assess childrens psychiatric diagnoses. Children completed 8 story stems of the MacArthur Story Stem Battery (Bretherton & Oppenheim, 2003). Story-stem narratives were coded for narrative coherence. Multivariate analyses were controlled for childrens age, gender, verbal performance, and externalizing symptoms. Results showed that maternal psychosocial stress was significantly associated with child internalizing symptoms and disorders. Neither maternal stress nor childrens internalizing symptoms or disorders were associated with narrative coherence. However, narrative coherence moderated the association between maternal stress and child internalizing symptoms. For children with more incoherent narratives, the association between maternal psychosocial stress and childrens internalizing symptoms was significantly stronger than for children with more coherent narratives. The moderation effect of narrative coherence concerning childrens internalizing disorders was found not to be significant. Our findings indicate that preschool childrens cognitive-emotional organization in dealing with relational conflict themes seems to buffer their mental health when exposed to adverse circumstances in their everyday family life.

Analyzing pathways from childhood maltreatment to internalizing symptoms and disorders in children and adolescents (AMIS): a study protocol

BackgroundEffective interventions for maltreated children are impeded by gaps in our knowledge of the etiopathogenic mechanisms leading from maltreatment to mental disorders. Although some studies have already identified individual risk factors, there is a lack of large-scale multilevel research on how psychosocial, neurobiological, and genetic factors act in concert to modulate risk of internalizing psychopathology in childhood following maltreatment. To help close this gap, we aim to delineate gender-specific pathways from maltreatment to psychological disorder/resilience. To this end, we examine the interplay of specific maltreatment characteristics and psychological, endocrine, metabolomic, and (epi-)genomic stress response patterns as well as cognitive-emotional/social processes as determinants of developmental outcome. Specifically, we will explore endocrine, metabolomic, and epigenetic mechanisms leading from maltreatment to a higher risk of depression and anxiety disorders.Methods/designFour large samples amounting to a total of N = 920 children aged 4–16 years will be assessed: Two cohorts with prior internalizing psychopathology and controls will be checked for maltreatment and two cohorts with substantiated maltreatment will be checked for internalizing (and externalizing) psychopathology. We will apply a multi-source (interview, questionnaires, official records), multi-informant strategy (parents, children, teachers) to assess maltreatment characteristics (e.g., subtypes, developmental timing, chronicity) and psychopathological symptoms, supplemented with multiple measurements of risk and protective factors and cutting-edge laboratory analyses of endocrine, steroid metabolomic and epigenetic factors. As previous assessments in the two largest samples are already available, longitudinal data will be generated within the three year study period.DiscussionOur results will lay the empirical foundation for (a) detection of early biopsychosocial markers, (b) development of screening measures, and (c) multisystem-oriented interventions in the wake of maltreatment.

Latent trajectories of internalizing symptoms from preschool to school age : A multi-informant study in a high-risk sample

Recent proposals suggest early adversity sets in motion particularly chronic and neurobiologically distinct trajectories of internalizing symptoms. However, few prospective studies in high-risk samples delineate distinct trajectories of internalizing symptoms from preschool age onward. We examined trajectories in a high-risk cohort, oversampled for internalizing symptoms, several preschool risk/maintenance factors, and school-age outcomes. Parents of 325 children completed the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire on up to four waves of data collection from preschool (3-5 years) to school age (8-9 years) and Preschool Age Psychiatric Assessment interviews at both ages. Multi-informant data were collected on risk factors and symptoms. Growth mixture modelling identified four trajectory classes of internalizing symptoms with stable low, rising low-to-moderate, stable moderate, and stable high symptoms. Children in the stable high symptom trajectory manifested clinically relevant internalizing symptoms, mainly diagnosed with anxiety disorders/depression at preschool and school age. Trajectories differed regarding loss/separation experience, maltreatment, maternal psychopathology, temperament, and stress-hormone regulation with loss/separation, temperament, maternal psychopathology, and stress-hormone regulation (trend) significantly contributing to explained variance. At school age, trajectories continued to differ on symptoms, disorders, and impairment. Our study is among the first to show that severe early adversity may trigger a chronic and neurobiologically distinct internalizing trajectory from preschool age onward.

A Multisource Approach to Assessing Child Maltreatment From Records, Caregivers, and Children

Practitioners and researchers alike face the challenge that different sources report inconsistent information regarding child maltreatment. The present study capitalizes on concordance and discordance between different sources and probes applicability of a multisource approach to data from three perspectives on maltreatment—Child Protection Services (CPS) records, caregivers, and children. The sample comprised 686 participants in early childhood (3- to 8-year-olds; n = 275) or late childhood/adolescence (9- to 16-year-olds; n = 411), 161 from two CPS sites and 525 from the community oversampled for psychosocial risk. We established three components within a factor-analytic approach: the shared variance between sources on presence of maltreatment (convergence), nonshared variance resulting from the child’s own perspective, and the caregiver versus CPS perspective. The shared variance between sources was the strongest predictor of caregiver- and self-reported child symptoms. Child perspective and caregiver versus CPS perspective mainly added predictive strength of symptoms in late childhood/adolescence over and above convergence in the case of emotional maltreatment, lack of supervision, and physical abuse. By contrast, convergence almost fully accounted for child symptoms for failure to provide. Our results suggest consistent information from different sources reporting on maltreatment is, on average, the best indicator of child risk.