Maternal mental health and child problem behaviours: disentangling the role of depression and borderline personality dysfunction

TY - JOUR

T1 - Maternal mental health and child problem behaviours

T2 - disentangling the role of depression and borderline personality dysfunction

AU - Huntley, Fay

AU - Wright, Nicola

AU - Pickles, Andrew

AU - Sharp, Helen

AU - Hill, Jonathan

PY - 2017/11

Y1 - 2017/11

N2 - Background: It is not known whether associations between child problem behaviours and maternal depression can be accounted for by comorbid borderline personality disorder (BPD) dysfunction.Aim: To examine the contributions of maternal depression and BPD symptoms to child problem behaviours.Method: Depression trajectories over the first-year postpartum were generated using repeated measurement from a general population sample of 997 mothers recruited in pregnancy. In a stratified subsample of 251, maternal depression and BPD symptoms were examined as predictors of child problem behaviours at 2.5 years.Results: Child problem behaviours were predicted by a high maternal depression trajectory prior to the inclusion of BPD symptoms. This association was no longer significant after the introduction of BPD symptoms.Conclusions: Risks for child problem behaviours currently attributed to maternal depression may arise from more persistent and pervasive difficulties found in borderline personality dysfunction.Declaration of interest: None.Copyright and usage: © The Royal College of Psychiatrists 2017, this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license.

AB - Background: It is not known whether associations between child problem behaviours and maternal depression can be accounted for by comorbid borderline personality disorder (BPD) dysfunction.Aim: To examine the contributions of maternal depression and BPD symptoms to child problem behaviours.Method: Depression trajectories over the first-year postpartum were generated using repeated measurement from a general population sample of 997 mothers recruited in pregnancy. In a stratified subsample of 251, maternal depression and BPD symptoms were examined as predictors of child problem behaviours at 2.5 years.Results: Child problem behaviours were predicted by a high maternal depression trajectory prior to the inclusion of BPD symptoms. This association was no longer significant after the introduction of BPD symptoms.Conclusions: Risks for child problem behaviours currently attributed to maternal depression may arise from more persistent and pervasive difficulties found in borderline personality dysfunction.Declaration of interest: None.Copyright and usage: © The Royal College of Psychiatrists 2017, this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license.

U2 - 10.1192/bjpo.bp.117.005843

DO - 10.1192/bjpo.bp.117.005843

M3 - Article

C2 - 29234522

SN - 2056-4724

VL - 3

SP - 300

EP - 305

JO - BJPsych Open

JF - BJPsych Open

IS - 6

ER -