Off-campus UMass Amherst users: To download campus access dissertations, please use the following link to log into our proxy server with your UMass Amherst user name and password.
Non-UMass Amherst users: Please talk to your librarian about requesting this dissertation through interlibrary loan.
Dissertations that have an embargo placed on them will not be available to anyone until the embargo expires.
Author ORCID Identifier
N/A
AccessType
Open Access Dissertation
Document Type
dissertation
Degree Name
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
Degree Program
Psychology
Year Degree Awarded
2015
Month Degree Awarded
May
First Advisor
David H. Arnold
Second Advisor
Elizabeth A. Harvey
Third Advisor
Lisa A. Keller
Fourth Advisor
Paula Pietromonaco
Subject Categories
Clinical Psychology
Abstract
Depression is a common, chronic condition that affects both adults and children and causes significant impairment across a variety of domains. Having a depressed parent puts children at risk for developing depression themselves. While there is considerable research examining the effects of maternal depression, relatively few studies have focused on paternal depression and its relation to child depressive symptoms. Longitudinal studies of paternal depression are especially scarce, and very few studies have examined both paternal and child depressive symptoms over an extended period of time. The present study examined whether and how paternal and child depressive symptoms covaried over a 3-year period using two analytic approaches: one that evaluated whether year-to-year changes in depressive symptoms were related, and another that evaluated whether depressive symptom trajectories over the 3-year period were related. This study also evaluated whether the relationship between fathers’ and children’s depressive symptoms differed depending on children’s gender. Additional analyses examined whether changes in maternal depressive symptoms might account for the associations between fathers’ and children’s depressive symptoms. In both sets of analyses, changes in paternal depression significantly predicted changes in father-reported and mother-reported child depressive symptoms. Findings related to child gender were mixed, and only approached significance. In the analyses that could control for maternal depressive symptom trajectories, only paternal trajectories significantly predicted children’s trajectories over the 3-year period. Results suggest that paternal depression has a uniquely important relationship with children’s depressive symptoms and underscore the importance of identifying and treating depressed fathers.
DOI
https://doi.org/10.7275/6957669.0
Recommended Citation
Tichovolsky, Marianne H., "A Longitudinal Study of Fathers' and Children's Depressive Symptoms" (2015). Doctoral Dissertations. 411.
https://doi.org/10.7275/6957669.0
https://scholarworks.umass.edu/dissertations_2/411