• Alicia Matijasevich, Joseph Murray, Peter J Cooper, Luciana Anselmi, Aluísio J D Barros, Fernando C Barros, and Iná S Santos.
• Department of Preventive Medicine, School of Medicine, University of São Paulo, São Paulo, SP, Brazil; Postgraduate Program in Epidemiology, Federal University of Pelotas, Pelotas, RS, Brazil. Electronic address: amatija@yahoo.com.
• J Affect Disord. 2015 Mar 15;174:424-31.

BackgroundFew studies have addressed the course and severity of maternal depression and its effects on child psychiatric disorders from a longitudinal perspective. This study aimed to identify longitudinal patterns of maternal depression and to evaluate whether distinct depression trajectories predict particular psychiatric disorders in offspring.MethodsCohort of 4231 births followed-up in the city of Pelotas, Brazil. Maternal depressive symptoms were assessed with the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale (EPDS) at 3, 12, 24 and 48 months and 6 years after delivery. Psychiatric disorders in 6-year-old children were evaluated through the development and well-being assessment (DAWBA) instrument. Trajectories of maternal depression were calculated using a group-based modelling approach.ResultsWe identified five trajectories of maternal depressive symptoms: a "low" trajectory (34.8%), a "moderate low" (40.9%), a "increasing" (9.0%), a "decreasing" (9.9%), and a "high-chronic" trajectory (5.4%). The probability of children having any psychiatric disorder, as well as both internalizing and externalizing problems, increased as we moved from the "low" to the "high-chronic" trajectory. These differences were not explained by maternal and child characteristics examined in multivariate analyses.LimitationsData on maternal depression at 3-months was available on only a sub-sample. In addition, we had to rely on maternal report of child's behavior alone.ConclusionsThe study revealed an additive effect on child outcome of maternal depression over time. We identified a group of mothers with chronic and severe symptoms of depression throughout the first six years of the child life and for this group child psychiatric outcome was particularly compromised.Copyright © 2014 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

22 keywords...

hide…