Hundreds of studies have documented an association between depression in mothers and behavior problems in children. Theory and empirical findings suggest this association may be confounded by other factors, but little attention has been paid to this issue. We used propensity score methods in a sample of 731 low-income families assessed repeatedly from child age 2 through 14 years to produce a weighted sample of families that were similar at child age 3 years except for mothers' depression. Depressive symptomatology was measured via self-report rating scale. Mothers were categorized as having clinically-elevated versus non-clinically-elevated scores based on an established threshold. Mothers with elevated versus nonelevated scores were equated on 89 other relevant characteristics (e.g., SES, child behavior, marital conflict). We then compared the equated groups on mother, secondary caregiver, and teacher ratings of child externalizing and internalizing behavior from child ages 4 to 14 years. Prior to equating, the mean prima facie effect of exposure to clinically-elevated mothers' depression scores at child age 3 years was d = 0.45 per mothers, d = 0.26 per secondary caregivers, and d = 0.13 per teachers. After equating, the mean adjusted effect was d = 0.07 per mothers, d = 0.01 per secondary caregivers, and d = 0.03 per teachers. Findings suggest that a substantial portion of the prima facie association between mothers' depression and later child behavior problems is accounted for by confounding variables rather than a causal effect of depressive symptoms per se. To fully understand why children of depressed mothers exhibit more behavior problems, a multicausal theory is needed that jointly considers the cluster of co-occurring clinical features that often accompany maternal depression. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

中文翻译：

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母亲的抑郁和儿童的外化和内化行为：一种超越联想的尝试。

数百项研究记录了母亲的抑郁症与儿童的行为问题之间的关联。理论和实证结果表明，这种关联可能会被其他因素混淆，但很少有人关注这个问题。我们在 731 个低收入家庭的样本中使用倾向评分方法，从 2 岁到 14 岁反复评估，以生成除母亲抑郁症外在 3 岁时相似的家庭加权样本。通过自我报告评定量表测量抑郁症状。根据既定阈值，母亲被归类为具有临床升高与非临床升高的分数。得分升高与未升高的母亲在 89 个其他相关特征（例如，SES、儿童行为、婚姻冲突）上被等同。然后，我们比较了母亲、二级照顾者和教师对 4 至 14 岁儿童外化和内化行为的等同组评分。在等同之前，3 岁儿童暴露于临床升高的母亲抑郁评分的平均表面效应为每位母亲 d = 0.45，每位二级照顾者 d = 0.26，每位教师 d = 0.13。等同后，调整后的平均效果为每位母亲 d = 0.07，每位二级照顾者 d = 0.01，每位教师 d = 0.03。研究结果表明，母亲的抑郁症与后来的儿童行为问题之间的表面证据表明，很大一部分是通过混杂变量而不是抑郁症状本身的因果效应来解释的。要充分理解为什么抑郁母亲的孩子表现出更多的行为问题，需要一个多因果理论来共同考虑通常伴随产妇抑郁症的一系列共同发生的临床特征。（PsycInfo 数据库记录 (c) 2021 APA，保留所有权利）。