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Description
Postpartum depression (PPD) is a significant public health concern affecting up to half a million U.S. women annually. Mexican-American women experience substantially higher rates of PPD, and represent an underserved population with significant health disparities that put these women and their infants at greater risk for substantial psychological and developmental difficulties. The current study utilized data on perceived stress, depression, maternal parenting behavior, and infant social-emotional and cognitive development from 214 Mexican-American mother-infant dyads. The first analysis approach utilized a latent intercept (LI) model to examine how overall mean levels and within-person deviations of perceived stress, depressive symptoms, and maternal parenting behavior are related across the postpartum period. Results indicated large, positive between- and within-person correlations between perceived stress and depression. Neither perceived stress nor depressive symptoms were found to have significant between- or within-person associations with the parenting variables. The second analysis approach utilized an autoregressive cross-lagged model with tests of mediation to identify underlying mechanisms among perceived stress, postpartum depressive symptoms, and maternal parenting behavior in the prediction of infant social-emotional and cognitive development. Results indicated that increased depressive symptoms at 12- and 18-weeks were associated with subsequent reports of increased perceived stress at 18- and 24-weeks, respectively. Perceived stress at 12-weeks was found to be negatively associated with subsequent non-hostility at 18-weeks, and both sensitivity and non-hostility were found to be associated with infant cognitive development and social-emotional competencies at 12 months of age (52-weeks), but not with social-emotional problems. The results of the mediation analyses showed that non-hostility at 18- and 24-weeks significantly mediated the association between perceived stress at 12-weeks and infant cognitive development and social-emotional competencies at 52-weeks. The findings extend research that sensitive parenting in early childhood is as important to the development of cognitive ability, social behavior, and emotion regulation in ethnic minority cultures as it is in majority culture families; that maternal perceptions of stress may spillover into parenting behavior, resulting in increased hostility and negatively influencing infant cognitive and social-emotional development; and that symptoms of depressed mood may influence the experience of stress.
ContributorsCiciolla, Lucia (Author) / Crnic, Keith A (Thesis advisor) / West, Stephen G. (Thesis advisor) / Luecken, Linda J. (Committee member) / Presson, Clark C. (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2014
Description
Latino children are more than twice as likely to live in poverty than their non-Latino, White peers (Kids Count Data Center, 2017), yet limited work has aimed to understand neighborhood influences on pathways of mental health among Latino children. Substantial work documents the deleterious effects of living in a disadvantaged neighborhood on mental health outcomes throughout the lifespan (Leventhal & Brooks-Gunn, 2000). Parental and familial variables may explain neighborhood influences on children’s mental health during the first few years of life (May, Azar, & Matthews, 2018). The current study evaluated the influence of three neighborhood indicators (concentrated disadvantage, residential instability, and the percentage of residents identifying as Hispanic/Latino) on maternal postpartum depressive symptoms and child behavior problems at 3 and 4.5 years via mediation and moderated mediation models among a sample of 322 low-income, Mexican American mother-child dyads. Contrary to hypotheses and existing literature, concentrated disadvantage and residential instability were not predictive of maternal or child mental health outcomes. The percentage of residents identifying as Hispanic/Latino emerged as a protective neighborhood factor for both mothers and children. The neighborhood ethnocultural context may be especially relevant to understanding pathways of mental health specific to Mexican American families. More research is needed to understand specific parental and familial mechanisms underlying this protective effect.
ContributorsCurci, Sarah (Author) / Luecken, Linda J. (Thesis advisor) / Perez, Marisol (Committee member) / White, Rebecca MB (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2019
Description
The parent-child relationship is one of the earliest and most formative experiences for social and emotional development. Synchrony, defined as the rhythmic patterning and quality of mutual affect, engagement, and physiological attunement, has been identified as a critical quality of a healthy mother-infant relationship. Although the salience of the quality of family interaction has been well-established, clinical and developmental research has varied widely in methods for observing and identifying influential aspects of synchrony. In addition, modern dynamic perspectives presume multiple factors converge in a complex system influenced by both nature and nurture, in which individual traits, behavior, and environment are inextricably intertwined within the system of dyadic relational units.
The present study aimed to directly examine and compare synchrony from three distinct approaches: observed microanalytic behavioral sequences, observed global dyadic qualities, and physiological attunement between mothers and infants. The sample consisted of 323 Mexican American mothers and their infants followed from the third trimester of pregnancy through the first year of life. Mothers were interviewed prenatally, observed at a home visit at 12 weeks postpartum, and were finally interviewed for child social-emotional problems at child age 12 months. Specific aspects of synchrony (microanalytical, global, and physiological) were examined separately as well as together to identify comparable and divergent qualities within the construct.
Findings indicated that multiple perspectives on synchrony are best examined together, but as independent qualities to account for varying characteristics captured by divergent systems. Dyadic relationships characterized by higher reciprocity, more time and flexibility in mutual non-negative engagement, and less tendency to enter negative or unengaged states were associated with fewer child social-emotional problems at child age 12 months. Lower infant cortisol was associated with higher levels of externalizing problems, and smaller differences between mother and child cortisol were associated with higher levels of child dysregulation. Results underscore the complex but important nature of synchrony as a salient mechanism underlying the social-emotional growth of children. A mutually engaged, non-negative, and reciprocal environment lays the foundation for the successful social and self-regulatory competence of infants in the first year of life.
The present study aimed to directly examine and compare synchrony from three distinct approaches: observed microanalytic behavioral sequences, observed global dyadic qualities, and physiological attunement between mothers and infants. The sample consisted of 323 Mexican American mothers and their infants followed from the third trimester of pregnancy through the first year of life. Mothers were interviewed prenatally, observed at a home visit at 12 weeks postpartum, and were finally interviewed for child social-emotional problems at child age 12 months. Specific aspects of synchrony (microanalytical, global, and physiological) were examined separately as well as together to identify comparable and divergent qualities within the construct.
Findings indicated that multiple perspectives on synchrony are best examined together, but as independent qualities to account for varying characteristics captured by divergent systems. Dyadic relationships characterized by higher reciprocity, more time and flexibility in mutual non-negative engagement, and less tendency to enter negative or unengaged states were associated with fewer child social-emotional problems at child age 12 months. Lower infant cortisol was associated with higher levels of externalizing problems, and smaller differences between mother and child cortisol were associated with higher levels of child dysregulation. Results underscore the complex but important nature of synchrony as a salient mechanism underlying the social-emotional growth of children. A mutually engaged, non-negative, and reciprocal environment lays the foundation for the successful social and self-regulatory competence of infants in the first year of life.
ContributorsCoburn, Shayna Skelley (Author) / Crnic, Keith A (Thesis advisor) / Dishion, Thomas J (Committee member) / Mackinnon, David P (Committee member) / Luecken, Linda J. (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2015
Description
Clinically meaningful emotional and behavioral problems are thought to be present beginning in infancy, and may be reliably assessed in children as young as 12 months old. However, few studies have investigated early correlates of emotional and behavioral problems assessed in infancy. The current study investigates the direct and interactive contributions of early infant and caregiver characteristics thought to play an important role in the ontogeny of behavior problems. Specifically, the study examines: (1) the links between temperamental reactivity across the first year of life and behavior problems at 18 months, (2) whether children high in temperamental reactivity are differentially susceptible to variations in maternal sensitivity, (3) the extent to which child temperamental risk or susceptibility may further be explained by mothers’ experiences of stressful life events (SLEs) during and before pregnancy. Data were collected from 322 Mexican American families during prenatal, 6-, 12-, 18-, and 24-week home interviews, as well as during 12- and 18-month lab interviews. Mother reports of SLEs were obtained between 23-40 weeks gestation; temperamental negativity and surgency at 6 weeks and 12 months; and internalizing and externalizing behaviors at 18 months. Maternal sensitivity during structured mother-infant interaction tasks at the 6-, 12-, 18-, and 24-week visits was assessed by objective observer ratings. Study findings indicated that maternal SLEs before birth were associated with more infant negativity across the first year of life, and that negativity in turn was associated with more internalizing problems at 18 months. Ecological stressors thought to be associated with sociodemographic risk factors such as low-income and ethnic minority status may begin to exert cascades of influence on children’s developmental outcomes even before birth.
ContributorsLin, Betty (Author) / Crnic, Keith A (Thesis advisor) / Lemery-Chalfant, Kathryn S (Committee member) / Luecken, Linda J. (Committee member) / Grimm, Kevin (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2016
Description
Socioeconomic status (SES) is linked with poorer health outcomes across the range of SES. The Reserve Capacity Model (RCM) proposes that low SES fuels repeated and/or chronic exposure to elevated levels of stress, producing deleterious emotional, psychological, social, and physiological changes that result in development of disease over time. The RCM further asserts that a relative lack of social and psychological resources, including efficacy and social support, among low SES individuals accounts for their greater vulnerability to the effects of stress. Although the links between stress, reserve capacity, and health outcomes are framed in the RCM as an ongoing process that produces disease, the majority of investigations testing the model have not examined its utility in explaining 1) coping with daily stressors or 2) symptom flares among individuals managing a chronic illness. This study investigated the effects of SES, reflected in income level, on the: 1) levels of daily financial events and financial worry; 2) relations between daily financial worry and symptoms of pain and fatigue; and 3) extent to which daily coping efficacy and social support mediated the daily financial worry-symptom relation across 21 daily diary reports collected from 220 individuals with fibromyalgia (FM). Simple correlations showed that income was inversely related to frequency of financial events and level of financial worry across 21 days. Results from multilevel models indicated that daily increases in financial worry were unrelated to pain regardless of income level, but were related to increased fatigue among individuals with lower relative to higher income. Daily efficacy and support mediated the relations between financial worry and pain and fatigue, but the extent of mediation did not differ based on high versus low income level. Taken together, the findings suggest that individuals of low versus high income encounter more frequent financial stress and experience greater daily fatigue exacerbation related to that stress, in line with the RCM. Over time, the greater exposure and reactivity to financial strain may account for the inverse relation between income and disability among those with chronic pain.
ContributorsMoore, Shannon Victoria (Author) / Davis, Mary C. (Thesis advisor) / Luecken, Linda J. (Committee member) / Suk, Hye Won (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2017