Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 May 2022
Callous Unemotional (CU) traits are associated with different environmental risk factors, such as negative stressful life events (SLE). The most common studied SLE associated with CU trait has been childhood maltreatment, but less is known about how other SLE impact the development of CU traits. Therefore, this work examines risk factors, personal factors (executive functioning), and mental health outcomes associated with the trajectories of Callous Unemotional (CU) traits and Stressful Life Events (SLE) in a community sample of children. A cohort of 377 preschoolers were followed up between ages 3 and 10. Several risk factors and outcomes for three trajectory groups (high CU/SLE; high CU/low SLE; and the reference group with low CU/SLE) were analyzed by using multiple post-hoc comparisons. We hypothesized that children with high CU/SLE would face more contextual risk factors, more executive functioning difficulties and more mental health problems than children with high CU/low SLE or the reference group. At the age of 3, children who showed high CU/SLE faced more early contextual adversity, including socioeconomic difficulties and maternal antisocial behavior than the other groups of children. At the age of 10, children with high CU/SLE presented more peer problems and higher psychopathology symptoms than the reference group, but no differences on mental health outcomes in comparison to the high CU/low SLE group. These results have potential implications for clinical practice and studies attempting to identify different CU subtypes in children.
José Blas-Navarro, Núria de la Osa, Eva Penelo, and Lourdes Ezpeleta work for the Unitat d’Epidemiologia i de Diagnòstic en Psicopatologia del Desenvolupament, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. Natalia Pueyo, Núria de la Osa, and Lourdes Ezpeleta work for the Departament de Psicologia Clínica i de la Salut, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. José-Blas Navarro and Eva Penelo work for the Departament de Psicobiologia i de Metodologia de les Ciències de la Salut, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona.
Funding statement: This work was supported by the Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities (Grant PGC2018–095239–B–I00 [MICIU/FEDER]).
Conflicts of Interest: None.