Citation

Lambregtse-van den Berg MP, Tiemeier H, Verhulst FC, Jaddoe V, Tindall E, Vlachos H, Aumayer K, Iles J, Ramchandani PG. Eur. Psychiatry 2018; 54: 77-84.

Affiliation

Academic Unit of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Imperial College, London, United Kingdom; PEDAL Centre, Faculty of Education, University of Cambridge, United Kingdom.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2018, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

10.1016/j.eurpsy.2018.07.007

PMID

30125784

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Early childhood aggressive behaviour is a predictor of future violence. Therefore, identifying risk factors for children's aggressive behaviour is important in understanding underlying mechanisms. Maternal postpartum depression is a known risk factor. However, little research has focused on the influence of paternal behaviour on early childhood aggression and its interaction with maternal postpartum depression.

METHODS: This study was performed in two cohorts: the Fathers Project, in the United Kingdom (n = 143) and the Generation R Study, in The Netherlands (n = 549). In both cohorts, we related paternal antisocial personality (ASP) traits and maternal postpartum depressive (PPD) symptoms to childhood aggressive behaviour at age two (Fathers Project) and age three (Generation R Study). We additionally tested whether the presence of paternal ASP traits increased the association between maternal PPD-symptoms and early childhood aggression.

RESULTS: The association between paternal ASP traits and early childhood aggressive behaviour, corrected for maternal PPD-symptoms, was similar in magnitude between the cohorts (Fathers Project: standardized β = 0.12, p = 0.146; Generation R: β = 0.14, p = 0.001), although the association was not statistically significant in the Fathers Project. Strikingly, and in contrast to our expectations, there was evidence of a negative interaction between paternal ASP traits and maternal PPD-symptoms on childhood aggressive behaviour (Fathers Project: β = -0.20, p = 0.020; Generation R: β = -0.09, p = 0.043) in both studies. This meant that with higher levels of paternal ASP traits the association between maternal PPD-symptoms and childhood aggressive behaviour was less and vice versa.

CONCLUSIONS: Our findings stress the importance of including both maternal and paternal psychopathology in future studies and interventions focusing on early childhood aggressive behaviour.

Crown Copyright © 2018. Published by Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved.

Language: en

Keywords

Child aggressive behaviour; Cohort studies; Maternal depression; Paternal antisocial behaviour