Potential Points of Intervention to Minimize the Impact of Parents' Adverse Childhood Experiences on Child Mental Health.
Gretchen J R Buchanan, Allan D Tate, Andrew Barnes and 2 others
PMID 36563343WHAT IT FOUND
Parent adverse childhood experiences were linked to child mental health symptoms through parent mental health symptoms and less positive parenting.
In the final model, parent ACEs did not remain directly linked to child symptoms.
Key findings
01Parent ACEs were associated with child mental health symptoms (β = .189, p < .001).
02The direct parent ACEs to child symptoms path was no longer significant in the mediation model (β = −0.013).
03In the final model, parent ACEs related to worse parent mental health (β = .374, p < .001), which related to less positive parenting (β = −.500, p < .001), which related to more child mental health symptoms (β = −.600, p < .001).
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they found
Read the rest of this summary
You get three full summaries a month, free, and we do not ask for a card. Search, the TL;DRs and your library stay unlimited either way.
What it does not show
The analysis used baseline data from a longitudinal cohort, so it was cross-sectional and cannot show that parent ACEs caused child mental health symptoms. Parent ACEs, parent mental health and child behaviour were all reported by parents on surveys, not confirmed by diagnoses or records. Some measures used shortened item sets rather than full validated scales. The sample was 44% immigrant households and had many ACEs, so results may apply more to an at-risk or diverse group than to all families. Children were 5 to 9 years old, so pathways in younger children or adolescents were not examined. Retrospective ACE reports may be underreported or overreported. The study did not compare responders with non-responders because of the stratified sampling design.
Declared interests
No author conflicts of interest declaration appears in the supplied article text. The supplied metadata lists research support from NIH, Extramural.
The easy way to misread this
Do not read this as proof that parent ACEs directly cause child mental health problems. The study is cross-sectional, uses parent-reported screeners, and the final model did not show a direct parent ACEs effect on child symptoms.