Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-g7gxr Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-17T17:57:26.915Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Modification of levels of depression in mother-bereaved women by parental and marital relationships

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 July 2009

Gordon Parker  and
Dusan Hadzi-Pavlovic
Gordon Parker*
Affiliation:
School of Psychiatry, University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia
Dusan Hadzi-Pavlovic
Affiliation:
School of Psychiatry, University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia
*
1 Address for correspondence: Professor Gordon Parker School of Psychiatry, University of New South Wales, Little Bay, 2036, Sydney, Australia.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Synopsis

A sample of 79 young women whose mothers had died in the subjects' childhood, and whose fathers had remarried, was studied to determine any effects on state and trait depression associated with modification of high and low risk parental style. Lack of care from fathers and lack of care from step-mothers were the parental variables most strongly associated with high trait depression, and almost all subjects scoring both these parents as uncaring affirmed a distinct life-time episode of depression. In a married sub-group of 63 subjects, low marital affection and low step-mother care accounted for 33% of the variance in trait depression scores, while low paternal care was no longer a significant predictor. Data for the married sub-group suggested that an affectionate husband largely corrected any diathesis to greater depression exerted by uncaring parenting, while the protective effects of caring parenting on adult depressive experience were largely undone by marriage to an unaffectionate husband.

Type
Research Article
Information
Psychological Medicine , Volume 14 , Issue 1 , February 1984 , pp. 125 - 135
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1984

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.)

References

Akiskal, H. S. & McKinney, W. T. (1975). Overview of recent research in depression: integration of ten conceptual models into a comprehensive clinical frame. Archives of General Psychiatry 32, 285–305.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Becker, J. (1974). Depression: Theory and Research. Winston: Washington, D.C.Google Scholar
Birtchnell, J. (1980). Women whose mothers died in childhood: an outcome study. Psychological Medicine 10, 699–713.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Blatt, S. J., Wein, S. J., Chevron, E. & Quinlan, D. M. (1979). Parental representations in normal young adults. Journal of Abnormal Psychology 88, 388–397.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Brown, G. W. & Harris, T. (1978 a). Social Origins of Depression: A Study of Psychiatric Disorder in Women. Tavistock: London.Google Scholar
Brown, G. W. & Harris, T. (1978 b). Social origins of depression: a reply. Psychological Medicine 8, 577–588.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Costello, C. G. (1982). Social factors associated with depression: a retrospective community study. Psychological Medicine 12, 329–339.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Costello, C. G. & Comrey, A. L. (1967). Scales for measuring depression and anxiety. The Journal of Psychology 66, 303–313.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Downing, R. W. (1979). The application of log linear models to the analysis of cross-classification data generated by single and multiple drug trials. In Co-Ordinating Clinical Trials in Psychopharmacology: Planning, Documentation and Analysis (ed. Levine, J.), pp. 101–139. National Institute of Mental Health: Rockville, MD.Google Scholar
Granville-Grossman, K. L. (1968). The early development in affective disorders. In Recent Developments in Affective Disorder, pp. 65–79. British Journal of Psychiatry, Special Publications No. 2. Headley Brothers: Ashford, Kent.Google Scholar
Heinicke, C. M. (1973). Parental deprivation in early childhood. In Separation and Depression: Clinical and Research Aspects (ed. Scott, J. P. and Senay, E. C.), pp. 141–160. American Association for the Advancement of Science: Washington, D.C.Google Scholar
Henderson, S., with Byrne, D. G. & Duncan-Jones, P. (1981). Neurosis and the Social Environment. Academic Press: Sydney.Google Scholar
Hinde, R. A. (1979). Towards Understanding Relationships. Academic Press: London.Google Scholar
Lloyd, C. (1980). Life events and depressive disorder reviewed. Archives of General Psychiatry 37, 529–541.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Parker, G. (1979). Parental characteristics in relation to depressive disorders. British Journal of Psychiatry 134, 138–147.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Parker, G. (1981). Parental reports of depressives: an investigation of several explanations. Journal of Affective Disorders 3, 131–140.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Parker, G. (1983 a). Parental Overprotection: A Risk Factor in Psychosocial Development. Grune & Stratton: New York.Google Scholar
Parker, G. (1983 b). Parental ‘affectionless control’ as an antecedent to adult depression. Archives of General Psychiatry 40, 956–960.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Parker, G. & Blignault, I. (1983). A comparative study of neurotic depression in symptomatic volunteers and psychiatric patients. Australian and New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry 17, 74–81.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Parker, G., Tupling, H. & Brown, L. B. (1979). A parental bonding instrument. British Journal of Medical Psychology 52, 1–10.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Paykel, E. S., Myers, J. K., Dienelt, M. N., Klerman, G. L., Lindenthal, J. J. & Pepper, M. P. (1969). Life events and depression. Archives of General Psychiatry 21, 753–760.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Rutter, M. (1972). Maternal Deprivation Reassessed. Penguin: Harmondsworth.Google Scholar
Ryle, A. (1966). A marital patterns test for use in psychiatric research. British Journal of Psychiatry 112, 285–293.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Spitzer, R. L. & Endicott, J. (1979). Schedule for Affective Disorders and Schizophrenia (3rd edn). New York State Psychiatric Institute: New York.Google Scholar
Susser, M. (1973). Causal Thinking in the Health Sciences: Concepts and Strategies of Epidemiology. Oxford University Press: New York.Google Scholar
Tennant, C. & Bebbington, P. (1978). The social causation of depression: a critique of the work of Brown and his colleagues. Psychological Medicine 8, 565–573.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vinson, T. (1974). Crime, Correction and the Public. Report No. 17, N.S.W. Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research.Google Scholar
Weissman, A. N. (1980). Assessing depressogenic attitudes: A validation study.Paper presented at the 51st Annual Meeting of the Eastern Psychological Association,Hartford, Connecticut.Google Scholar
Zung, W. W. K. (1965). A self-rating depression scale. Archives of General Psychiatry 12, 63–70.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Zung, W. W. K. (1979). A cross-cultural survey of symptoms in depression. American Journal of Psychiatry 126, 154–159.Google Scholar