@article{ref1,
title="Mental health of preschool children and their mothers in a mixed urban/rural population. III. Latent variable models",
journal="British journal of psychiatry",
year="1996",
author="Stevenson, J. and Thompson, Mark J. and Sonuga-Barke, E.",
volume="168",
number="1",
pages="26-32",
abstract="BACKGROUND: There is a lack of clear and explicit models of the way various family and social influences on children's behaviour interact with factors such as temperament to produce behaviour disturbance in young children. <br><br>METHOD: The following measures had been obtained on a total population sample of 1047 families with a 3-year-old child: the child's perceived cuddliness, difficult temperament, mother's unhappy childhood, maternal disturbance, social class, behaviour problems and overactivity. A latent variable analysis using the LISREL 7 program was applied to the data. <br><br>RESULTS: A model that allowed the latent variables child 'temperament' and 'mother's mental state' to have separate additive effects on 'child adaptation' proved an excellent fit (goodness of fit index = 0.956). This model suggests that there is a common factor ('child adaptation') underlying behaviour problems and overactivity. Using this model 72% of child adaptation in boys could be explained. For girls however temperament and mother's mental state accounted for only 30% of the variance in child adaptation. <br><br>CONCLUSION: There is a need to investigate different mechanisms for the origins of behaviour problems in preschool boys and girls.<p /><p>Language: en</p>",
language="en",
issn="0007-1250",
doi="",
url="http://dx.doi.org/"
}