Aim

We aim to explore the relationship between maternal and paternal depression over time in order understand the direction of causality taking into account reciprocal effects. A further aim is to explore how this relationship alters according to child behaviour and life stresses and finally how this relationship impacts on future child emotion and behaviour.

Method

We propose analysing the ALSPAC data up to age 8 including repeated measure of maternal and paternal mood and measures of child emotional and behavioural problems. We will begin by exploring reciprocal causation between maternal and paternal depression and investigate how this varies as a function of life stress, child behaviour, marital relationship and family size. We will use multilevel models to investigate the random slopes for lags and crosslags this represents a novel method of investigating these questions with the advantage that this more flexible statistical model can model the more complex reciprocal relationships likely to arise within families.

Variables

Our main variables will be:

Maternal Mood EPDS pregnancy 18 weeks & 32 weeks antenatally 2, 8, 21 33 61 73 and 97 months postnatally

Paternal mood EPDS pregnancy 18 weeks antenatally 2, 8, 21 33 61 73 and 97 months postnatal

Child emotional and behavioural problems - Carey infant temperament 6 months and Carey toddler temperament 24 months EAS temperament 38, 57 and 69 months Rutter parent Scale for preschool chidldren 42, 57 & 69 months SDQ 47 81 97 months.

Other variables:

Age mother

Age father

Number of children in home

Primip vs multip

Nature of delivery

SES (highest educational level mother)

Quality of Marital relationship - Intimate bond measure 21 and 33 months

Life events 18 weeks 32 weeks antenatally, 2, 8, 21 33 47, 61, 73 months.