Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry
Volume 47, Issue 4 , Pages 399-405, April 2008

Change in Adolescents' Internalizing Symptomatology as a Function of Sex and the Timing of Maternal Depressive Symptomatology

  • JENNIFER M. JENKINS, Ph.D.

      Affiliations

    • Corresponding Author InformationCorrespondence to Dr. Jennifer Jenkins, Department of Human Development and Applied Psychology, University of Toronto, 252 Bloor Street West, Toronto M5S 1V6, ON, Canada;.
    • ,
  • TRACEY CURWEN, Ph.D.

Dr. Jenkins is with the Department of Human Development and Applied Psychology, University of Toronto, and Dr. Curwen is with the Department of Psychology, Nippissing University.

Accepted 4 October 2007.

ABSTRACT 

Objective

The purpose of this exploratory study was to examine change in internalizing symptoms from late childhood (age 10) into mid-adolescence (age 15) in a nationally representative sample of Canadian children. The roles of a child's sex, maternal depressive symptoms in late childhood, and their interactions were investigated.

Method

The sample was derived from the National Longitudinal Survey of Children and Youth. Mothers reported on their own depressive symptoms and children reported on their own internalizing symptoms at three time (T) points (T1: 1994/1995; T2: 1996/1997; T3: 1998/1999). Change in children's internalizing symptoms was investigated using multiple regression.

Results

Girls increased and boys decreased in their internalizing symptoms from T1 to T3. The effect of maternal depressive symptoms at T1 was moderated by sex and remained significant after controlling for maternal depressive symptoms at T2 and T3, with more adverse effects in girls.

Conclusions

The internalizing symptoms of girls increased from childhood to adolescence, whereas those for boys decreased. Female children exposed to maternal depressive symptoms T1 continued to show negative effects 4 years later.

Key Words:  childhood internalizing , sex , longitudinal study , timing , maternal depression

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 Accepted October 4, 2007, under the Editorship of Mina K. Dulcan, M.D.We are grateful to the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council for funding the project. Thanks to Richard Wolfe and Jon Rasbash for advice on statistical analyses in an earlier draft and to a blind reviewer. We are grateful to Statistics Canada and the Research Data Centre Program for providing access to the data. Although the research and analysis are based on data from Statistics Canada, the opinions expressed do not represent the views of Statistics Canada.Disclosure: The authors report no conflicts of interest.

PII: S0890-8567(09)62395-9

doi:10.1097/CHI.0b013e31816407db

Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry
Volume 47, Issue 4 , Pages 399-405, April 2008

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