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 Project Title: Providence Family Study of Affective and Anxiety Disorders
 Principal Investigator: Ronald Seifer
 Co-Investigators: Arnold Sameroff & Susan Dickstein

 

Contact Person and Information:
Ronald Seifer, Ph. D.
Department of Psychiatry and Human Behavior
Brown University
1011 Veterans Memorial Parkway
East Providence, RI 02915
Ronald_Seifer@brown.edu
Voice:(401) 751-8040; Fax:(401) 331-2768

 

 STUDY AIMS:
The study is designed to examine the processes by which parental affective and anxiety disorders affect the development of their preschool children. Comparisons are made among hypotheses that the effects are: (1) independent of the child's experience, (2) dependent on mother's depressed or anxious behavior, (3) mediated by family interaction variables, or (4) mediated by social and economic conditions.
 
 CHARACTERISTICS OF THE INITIAL SAMPLE:
Selection criteria:
Mothers with a 1 or 2-1/2 year old child and either (1) a psychiatric diagnosis of affective disorder (2) anxiety disorder or (3) no psychiatric diagnosis.
 Sample characteristics:

Gender:

 51% Male, 49% Female

Ethnicity:

 97% White (Representative of local psychiatric hospital population)

Socioeconomic Status:

 High to Low

COMPLETED WAVES:

 Wave

 Age of Subjects
   N:

1
 1 to 2-1/2 years 180

2
 4 years 180
Currently Funded Waves:

3

9 years
 --

DEVELOPMENTAL STAGES:
Early Childhood
Middle Childhood		    

MEASURES    
Personal:
  Personality: Temperament
Attachment
   Cognitive Compentence: Mastery Motivation and Problem Solving
Language
 

  Symptoms and Syndromes:

 Sleep Disturbances
Child Behavior Check List
Social
  Family: Mother's and Father's Mental Health
Marital Interaction
Family Functioning
Parenting Style
 

 Stresses and Supports:

 Social Relationships
Life Events
Environmental Risk Score

 

REPRESENTATIVE FINDINGS:
1) Depressed mothers are more likely to marry men with psychiatric symptoms and to have more problems in family functioning than mothers with no psychiatric symptoms.

2) Mothers with current symptoms of depression have a greater negative effect on child competence than mothers with only a past diagnosis of depression.

3) Disturbed family functioning explains much of the relation between mother's diagnosis of affective disorder and child behavior.
REPRESENTATIVE PUBLICATIONS:
Seifer, R., Sameroff, A. J., Dickstein, Keitner, G., & Miller, I. (1996). Parental psychopathology, multiple contextual risks, and one-year outcomes in children. Journal of Clinical Child Psychology, 25, 423-435.

Dickstein, S., Seifer, R., Hayden, L. C., Schiller, M., Sameroff, A. J., Keitner, G., Miller, I., Rasmussen, S., Matzko, M., & Magee, K.D. (1998). Levels of family assessment II: Impact of maternal psychopathology on family functioning. Journal of Family Psychology, 12, 23-40.

Hayden, L. C., Schiller, M., Dickstein, S., Seifer, R., Sameroff, A. J., Miller, I., Keitner, G., & Rasmussen, S. (1998). Levels of family assessment I: Family, marital, and parent-child interaction. Journal of Family Psychology. 12, 7-22.