The relationship between maternal depression, adolescent depression, and engagement in health-risk behaviours

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Résumé (français)

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Résumé (anglais)

Maternal depression is a known risk factor for offspring psychopathology; however, the role of maternal depressive symptoms in the adolescent engagement in health-risk behaviours (e.g., substance use and delinquency) needs further study. Using data from 2910 youth in the National Longitudinal Survey of Children and Youth (NLSCY), a nationally representative prospective cohort, the relationship between maternal depressive symptoms and engagement in a variety of health-risk behaviours at age 16-17, as well as time of onset of engagement, was examined. Latent class analysis was used to model trajectories of maternal depressive symptoms from age 4-15, and exploratory factor analysis was used to examine clusters of health-risk behaviours; five trajectories of maternal depressive symptoms during childhood were modeled, and five factors of behaviours were found. findings indicate that adolescents exposed to high maternal depressive symptoms in mid-childhood engaged in more health-risk behaviours, earlier, than adolescents not exposed to maternal depressive symptoms.