Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-2plfb Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-01T03:21:48.894Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Defining risk heterogeneity for internalizing symptoms among children of alcoholic parents

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 January 2008

Andrea M. Hussong ,
David B. Flora ,
Patrick J. Curran ,
Laurie A. Chassin  and
Robert A. Zucker
Andrea M. Hussong*
Affiliation:
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
David B. Flora
Affiliation:
York University
Patrick J. Curran
Affiliation:
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Laurie A. Chassin
Affiliation:
Arizona State University
Robert A. Zucker
Affiliation:
University of Michigan
*
Address correspondence and reprint requests to: Andrea Hussong, CB#3270 Davie Hall, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC 27599-3270; E-mail: [email protected].
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Adopting a developmental epidemiology perspective, the current study examines sources of risk heterogeneity for internalizing symptomatology among children of alcoholic parents (COAs). Parent-based factors, including comorbid diagnoses and the number of alcoholic parents in the family, as well as child-based factors, namely child gender, formed the indicators of heterogeneity. Following a novel approach to cross-study methods, we present a three-stage analysis involving measurement development using item response theory, examination of study effects on latent trajectories over time using latent curve modeling, and prediction of these latent trajectories testing our theoretically derived hypotheses in two longitudinal investigations across both mother- and self-reported symptomatology. Specifically, we replicated previous findings that parent alcoholism has a unique effect on child internalizing symptoms, above and beyond those of both parent depression and antisocial personality disorder. However, we also found important subgroup differences, explaining heterogeneity within COAs' risk profile in terms of the number of alcoholic parents in the family, comorbid diagnoses for the alcoholic parent and, for self-reported symptoms, child gender. Such factors serve to refine the definition of risk among COAs, suggesting a more severely impaired target group for preventive interventions, identifying the significance of familial alcoholism in individual differences underlying internalizing symptoms over time, and further specifying the distal risk matrix for an internalizing pathway to alcohol involvement.

Type
Research Article
Information
Development and Psychopathology , Volume 20 , Issue 1 , Winter 2008 , pp. 165 - 193
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2008

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

This work was supported by Grants R01 DA15398 (to A.M.H.), R37 AA 07065 (to R.A.Z.), R01 AA16213 (to L.A.C.), and R01 DA13148 (to P.J.C.). We thank the Centre for Addictions Research in British Columbia at the University of Victoria and the Reynolds Competitive Study Leave program for their support, and we acknowledge the contributions of Michael Edwards, R. J. Wirth, and Daniel Serrano.

References

Achenbach, T., & Edelbrock, C. (1981). The classification of child psychopathology: A review and analysis of empirical efforts. Psychological Bulletn, 85, 1275–1301.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Andreasen, N. C., Endicott, J., Spitzer, R. L., & Winokur, G. (1977). The family history method using diagnostic criteria. Reliability and validity. Archives of General Psychiatry, 34, 1229–1235.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Angold, A., & Costello, E. (2001). The epidemiology of disorders of conduct: Nosological issues and comorbidity. In Maughan, B. & Hill, J. (Eds.), Conduct disorders in childhood and adolescence (pp. 126–168). New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Angold, A., Erkanli, A., Loeber, R., Costello, E.J., Van Kammen, W., & Stouthamer-Loeber, M. (1996). Disappearing depression in a population sample of boys. Journal of Emotional and Behavioral Disorders, 4, 95–104.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Arbuckle, J. (1996). Full information estimation in the presence of incomplete data. In Marcoulides, G. & Schumacker, R. (Eds.), Advanced structural equation modeling: Issues and techniques (pp. 243–277). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Babor, T. F. (1996). The classification of alcoholics: Typology theories from the 19th century to the present. Alcohol Health and Research World, 20, 6–17.Google Scholar
Benjamini, Y., & Hochberg, Y. (1995). Controlling the false discovery rate: A practical and powerful approach to multiple testing. Journal of the Royal Statistical Society, Series B, 57, 289–300.Google Scholar
Berlin, J. A., Santanna, J., Schmid, C. H., Szczech, L. A., & Feldman, H. I. (2002). Individual patient- versus group-level data meta-regressions for the investigation of treatment effect modifiers: Ecological bias rears its ugly head. Statistics in Medicine, 21, 371–387.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Biesanz, J. C., Deeb-Sossa, N., Aubrecht, A. M., Bollen, K. A., & Curran, P. J. (2004). The role of coding time in estimating and interpreting growth curve models. Psychological Methods, 9, 30–52.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bingham, C. R., Fitzgerald, W. W., Fitzgerald, H. E., & Zucker, R. A. (1996). Prenatal history, parental alcoholism, and the development of preschool aged sons of alcoholics (Abstract). Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research, 20, 469.Google Scholar
Bollen, K. A., & Curran, P. J. (2006). Latent curve models: A structural equation approach. New York: Wiley.Google Scholar
Boye-Beaman, J., Leonard, K. E., & Senchak, M. (1991). Assortative mating, relationship development, and intimacy among offspring of alcoholics. Family Dynamics of Addiction Quarterly, 1, 20–33.Google Scholar
Boyle, M. H., & Pickles, A. (1997). Maternal depressive symptoms and ratings of emotional disorder symptoms in children and adolescents. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 38, 981–992.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Cairns, R. B., & Cairns, B. D. (1994). Lifelines and risks: Pathways of youth in our time: New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Carrig, M., Wirth, R. J., & Curran, P. J. (2004). A SAS macro for estimating and visualizing individual growth curves. Structural Equation Modeling: An Interdisciplinary Journal, 11, 132–149.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Caspi, A., Moffitt, T. E., Newman, D. L., & Silva, P. A. (1996). Behavioral observations at age 3 years predict adult psychiatric disorders: Longitudinal evidence from a birth cohort. Archives of General Psychiatry, 53, 1033–1039.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Chassin, L., Barrera, Jr. M., Bech, K., & Kossak-Fuller, J. (1992). Recruiting a community sample of adolescent children of alcoholics: A comparison of three subject sources. Journal of Studies on Alcohol, 53, 316–319.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Chassin, L., Pillow, D. R., Curran, P. J., & Molina, B. S. (1993). Relation of parental alcoholism to early adolescent substance use: A test of three mediating mechanisms. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 102, 3–19.Google Scholar
Chassin, L., Pitts, S. C., DeLucia, C., & Todd, M. (1999). A longitudinal study of children of alcoholics: Predicting young adult substance use disorders, anxiety, and depression. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 108, 106–119.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Chassin, L., Rogosch, F., & Barrera, M. (1991). Substance use and symptomatology among adolescent children of alcoholics. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 100, 449–463.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Cohen, J., Cohen, P., West, S. J., & Aiken, L. S. (2003). Applied multiple regression/correlation analysis for the behavioral sciences. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Compas, B. E., Oppedisano, G., Connor, J. K., Gerhardt, C. A., Hinden, B. R., & Achenbach, T. M. (1997). Gender differences in depressive symptoms in adolescence: Comparison of national samples of clinically referred and nonreferred youths. Journal of Consulting & Clinical Psychology, 65, 617–626.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Costello, E. J., & Angold, A. (2006). Development and epidemiology. In Cicchetti, D. & Cohen, D. J. (Eds.), Developmental psychopathology: Vol. 1. Theory and method (2nd ed., pp. 41–75). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.Google Scholar
Costello, E., Mustillo, S., Erkanli, A., Keeler, G., & Angold, A. (2003). Prevalence and development of psychiatric disorders in childhood and adolescence. Archives of General Psychiatry, 60, 837–844.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Curran, P. J., & Chassin, L. (1996). A longitudinal study of parenting as a protective factor for children of alcoholics. Journal of Studies on Alcohol, 57, 305–313.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Curran, P. J., Edwards, M. C., Wirth, R. J., Hussong, A. M., & Chassin, L. (2007). The incorporation of categorical measurement models in the analysis of individual growth. In Little, T., Bovaird, J., & Card, N. (Eds.), Modeling in ecological and contextual effects in longitudinal studies of human development (pp. 89–120). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Davis, B., Sheeber, L., & Hops, H. (2002). Coercive family processes and adolescent depression. In Patterson, G. R. & Reid, J. B. (Eds.), Antisocial behavior in children and adolescents: A developmental analysis and model for intervention (pp. 173–192). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.Google Scholar
DuRocher, T. D., & Cummings, E. M. (2006). Parental dysphoria and children's internalizing symptoms: Marital conflict styles as mediators of risk. Child Development, 74, 1663–1681.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Edwards, E. P., Leonard, K. E., & Eiden, R. D. (2001). Temperament and behavioral problems among infants in alcoholic families. Infant Mental Health Journal, 22, 374–392.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Embretson, S. E., & Reise, S. P. (2000). Item response theory for psychologists. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Feighner, J. P., Robins, E., Guze, S. B., Woodruff, R. A., Winokur, G., & Munoz, R. (1972). Diagnostic criteria for use in psychiatric research. Archives of General Psychiatry, 26, 57–63.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Fitzgerald, H. E., Sullivan, L. A., Ham, H. P., Zucker, R. A., Bruckel, S., Schneider, A. M., et al. (1993). Predictors of behavior problems in three-year-old sons of alcoholics: Early evidence for the onset of risk. Child Development, 64, 110–123.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Fitzgerald, H. E., Zucker, R. A., & Yang, H. Y. (1995). Developmental systems theory and alcoholism: Analyzing patterns of variation in high-risk families. Psychology of Addictive Behaviors, 9, 8–22.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ge, X., Lorenz, F. L., Conger, R. D., Elder, G. H., & Simons, R. L. (1994). Trajectories of stressful life events and depressive symptoms during adolescence. Developmental Psychology, 30, 467–483.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Graber, J. (2004). Internalizing problems during adolescence. In Lerner, R. M. & Steinberg, L. (Eds.), Handbook of adolescent psychology (pp. 587–626). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Grant, B. F., Dawson, D. A., Stinson, F. S., Chou, S., Dufour, M. C., & Pickering, R. P. (2004). The 12-month prevalence and trends in DSM-IV alcohol abuse and dependence: United States, 1991–1992 and 2001–2002. Drug and Alcohol Dependence, 74, 223–234.Google Scholar
Hussong, A. M., & Chassin, L. (2004). Stress and coping among children of alcoholic parents through the young adult transition. Development and Psychopathology, 16, 985–1006.Google Scholar
Hussong, A. M., Zucker, R. A., Wong, M. M., Fitzgerald, H. E., & Puttler, L. I. (2005). Social competence in children of alcoholic parents over time. Developmental Psychology, 41, 747–759.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Jacob, T., & Leonard, K. (1986). Psychosocial functioning in children of alcoholic fathers, depressed fathers and control fathers. Journal of Studies on Alcohol, 47, 373–380.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Jansen, R. E., Fitzgerald, H. E., Ham, H. P., & Zucker, R. A. (1995). Pathways into risk: Temperament and behavior problems in three- to five- year old sons of alcoholics. Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research, 25, 835–843.Google Scholar
Kaslow, N. J., Deering, C. G., & Racusin, G. R. (1994). Depressed children and their families. Clinical Psychology Review, 14, 39–59.Google Scholar
Kellam, S. G., Ensminger, M. E., & Simon, M. B. (1980). Mental health in first grade and teenage drug, alcohol and cigarette use. Drug and Alcohol Dependence, 5, 273–304.Google Scholar
Kendler, K. S., Neale, M. C., Heath, A. C., Kessler, R. C., & Eaves, L. J. (1994). A twin-family study of alcoholism in women. American Journal of Psychiatry, 15, 707–715.Google Scholar
Kendler, K. S., Prescott, C. A., Myers, J., & Neale, M. C. (2003). The structure of genetic and environmental risk factors for common psychiatric and substance use disorders in men and women. Archives of General Psychiatry, 60, 929–937.Google Scholar
Khoo, S. T., West, S. G., Wu, W., & Kwok, O. M. (2006). Longitudinal methods. In Eid, M. & Diener, E. (Eds.), Handbook of multimethod measurement in psychology. (pp. 301–317). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.Google Scholar
Kim, H. K., Capaldi, D. M., & Stoolmiller, M. (2003). Depressive symptoms across adolescence and young adulthood in men: Predictions from parental and contextual risk factors. Development and Psychopathology, 15, 469–495.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kosten, T. A., Anton, S. F., & Rounsaville, B. J. (1992). Ascertaining psychiatric diagnoses with the family history method in a substance-abuse population. Journal of Psychiatric Research, 26, 135–147.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Loukas, A., Piejak, L. A., Bingham, C. R., Fitzgerald, H. E., & Zucker, R. A. (2001). Parental distress as a mediator of problem behaviors in sons of alcohol-involved families. Family Relations, 50, 293–301.Google Scholar
Loukas, A., Zucker, R. A., Fitzgerald, H. E., & Krull, J. L. (2003). Developmental trajectories of disruptive behavior problems among sons of alcoholics: Effects of parent psychopathology, family conflict, and child undercontrol. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 112, 119–131.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Maes, H. H. M., Neale, M. C., Kendler, K. S., Hewitt, J. K., Silberg, J. L., Foley, D. L., et al. (1998). Assortative mating for major psychiatric diagnoses in two population-based samples. Psychological Medicine, 28, 1389–1401.Google Scholar
Mayfield, D., McLeod, G., & Hall, P. (1974). The CAGE questionnaire: validation of a new alcoholism screening instrument. American Journal of Psychiatry, 131, 1121–1123.Google Scholar
McArdle, J. J. (1988). Dynamic but structural equation modeling of repeated measures data. In Cattell, R. B. & Nesselroade, J. R. (Eds.), Handbook of multivariate experimental psychology (2nd ed., pp. 561–614). New York: Plenum Press.Google Scholar
McArdle, J. J., & Horn, J. L. (2002). The benefits and limitations of mega-analysis with illustrations for the WAIS. Paper presented at the International Meeting of CODATA, Montreal.Google Scholar
Mehta, P. D., & West, S. G. (2000). Putting the individual back into individual growth curves. Psychological Methods, 5, 23–43.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Merikangas, K. R., Leckman, J. F., Prusoff, B. A., Pauls, D. L., & Weissman, M. M. (1985). Familial transmission of depression and alcoholism. Archives of General Psychiatry, 42, 367–372.Google Scholar
Muthén, L. K., & Muthén, B. O. (2004). Mplus user's guide. New York: Author.Google Scholar
Muthén, B. O., & Satorra, A. (1995). Complex sample data in structural equation modeling. In Marsden, P. (Ed.), Sociological methodology (pp. 267–316). Washington, DC: American Sociological Association.Google Scholar
Noll, R. B., Zucker, R. A., Fitzgerald, H. E., & Curtis, W. J. (1992). Cognitive and motoric functioning of sons of alcoholic fathers and controls: The early childhood years. Developmental Psychology, 28, 665–675.Google Scholar
Preisig, M., Fenton, B. T., Stevens, D. E., & Merikangas, K. R. (2001). Familial relationship between mood disorders and alcoholism. Comprehensive Psychiatry, 42, 87–95.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Puttler, L. I., Zucker, R. A., Fitzgerald, H. E., & Bingham, C. (1998). Behavioral outcomes among children of alcoholics during the early and middle childhood years: Familial subtype variations. Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research, 22, 1962–1972.Google ScholarPubMed
Robins, L. N., Helzer, J. E., Croughan, J., & Ratcliff, K. S. (1980). The NIMH Diagnostic Interview Schedule: Its history, characteristics and validity. St. Louis, MO: Washington University School of Medicine.Google Scholar
Selzer, M. L., Vinokur, A., & van Rooijan, L. (1975). A self-administered short Michigan Alcoholism Screening Test (SMAST). Journal of Studies on Alcohol, 36, 117–126.Google Scholar
Sher, K. J. (1993). Children of alcoholics: A critical appraisal of theory and research. Psychology of Addictive Behaviors, 7, 201–202.Google Scholar
Sokol, R. J., & Claren, S. K. (1989). Guidelines for use of terminology describing the impact of prenatal alcohol on the offspring. Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research, 13, 597–598.Google Scholar
Thissen, D. (1991). MULTILOG user's guide: Multiple, categorical item analysis and test scoring using item response theory [Computer Software]. Chicago: Scientific Software.Google Scholar
Thissen, D. (2001). IRTLRDIF v. 2.01b: Software for the computation of the statistics involved in item response theory likelihood-ratio tests for differential item functioning [Software]. Chapel Hill, NC: L.L. Thurstone Psychometric Laboratory.Google Scholar
Thissen, D., & Orlando, M. (2001). Item response theory for items scored in two categories. In Wainer, H. & Thissen, D. (Eds.), Test scoring (pp. 73–140). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Thissen, D., Steinberg, L., & Wainer, H. (1993). Detection of differential item functioning using the parameters of item response models. In Wainer, H. & Holland, P. (Eds.), Differential item functioning (pp. 67–113). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Tubman, J. G. (1993). Family risk-factors, parental alcohol-use, and problem behaviors among school-age-children. Family Relations, 42, 81–86.Google Scholar
Twenge, J. M., & Nolen-Hoeksema, S. (2002). Age, gender, race, SES, and birth cohort differences on the Children's Depression Inventory: A meta-analysis. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 111, 578–588.Google Scholar
Werner, E. E. (1986). Resilient offspring of alcoholics: A longitudinal study from birth to age 18. Journal of Studies on Alcohol, 47, 34–40.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Wichstrom, L. (1999). The emergence of gender difference in depressed mood during adolescence: The role of intensified gender socialization. Developmental Psychology, 35, 232–245.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Wingersky, M. S., & Lord, F. M. (1984). An investigation of methods for reducing sampling error in certain IRT procedures. Applied Psychological Measurement, 8, 347–364.Google Scholar
Wong, M., Zucker, R., Puttler, L., & Fitzgerald, H. (1999). Heterogeneity of risk aggregation for alcohol problems between early and middle childhood: Nesting structure variations. Development and Psychopathology, 11, 727–744.Google Scholar
Zimmerman, M., Coryell, W., Pfohl, B., & Stangl, D. (1988). The reliability of the family history method for psychiatric diagnoses. Archives of General Psychiatry, 45, 320–322.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Zucker, R. A. (2006). Alcohol use and alcohol use disorders: A developmental–biopsychosocial systems formulation covering the life course. In Cicchetti, D. & Cohen, D. J. (Eds.), Developmental psychopathology: Vol. 3. Risk, disorder and adaptation (2nd ed., pp. 620–656). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.Google Scholar
Zucker, R. A., Chermack, S. T., & Curran, G. M. (2000). Alcoholism: A lifespan of etiology and course. In Sameroff, A., Lewis, M., & Miller, S. (Eds.), Handbook of developmental psychopathology (2nd ed., pp. 569–587). New York: Plenum Press.Google Scholar
Zucker, R. A., Ellis, D. A., Bingham, C. R., & Fitzgerald, H. E. (1996). The development of alcoholic subtypes: Risk variation among alcoholic families during the early childhood years. Alcohol Health and Research World, 20, 46–55.Google Scholar
Zucker, R. A., Ellis, D. A., Fitzgerald, H. E., Bingham, C. R., & Sanford, K. (1996). Other evidence for at least two alcoholisms, II: Life course variation in antisociality and heterogeneity of alcoholic outcome. Development and Psychopathology, 8, 831–838.Google Scholar
Zucker, R. A., Fitzgerald, H., & Noll, R. B. (1990). Drinking and drug history (rev. ed., version 4). Unpublished manuscript.Google Scholar
Zucker, R. A., Fitzgerald, H. E., Refior, S. K., Puttler, L. I., Pallas, D. M., & Ellis, D. A. (2000). The clinical and social ecology of childhood for children of alcoholics: Description of a study and implications for a differentiated social policy. In Fitzgerald, H. E., Lester, B. M., & Zuckerman, B. S. (Eds.), Children of addiction: Research, health and policy issues (pp. 174–222). New York: Garland Press.Google Scholar