Background: Early childhood is a crucial period for the development of emotional self-regulation, which can be adversely affected by many factors, such as maternal IPV-PTSD (interpersonal violence- related PTSD), also impacting child behavior and psychopathology. This study aims to assess whether maternal IPV-PTSD predicts aggressive and anxio-depressive symptoms in children aged 9-15, and to evaluate the impact of other socio-demographic and psychological factors.
Methods: This longitudinal study uses data from the Geneva Early Childhood Stress Project with 44 mother-child dyads, including 25 mothers showing symptoms of IPV-PTSD who compose the group factor. Various maternal variables were collected when the children were aged 1-3.5 years. Child psychopathology symptoms were assessed using the K-SADS-E interview, focusing on aggressive and anxio-depressive disorders. Using different statistical methods of analysis, we examined the main effects of child sex, gender, socio-economic status, maternal IPV-PTSD, parent-child dysfunctional interaction, maternal sensitivity, alexithymia and maternal trauma on child psychopathology.
Results: We observed a main effect of maternal IPV-PTSD on child pathology (p=.035). We identified an interaction between child sex and child pathology (p=.015). We found an interaction between maternal SES and child pathology (p=.041) with divergent relations to aggressive and anxio-depressive child symptoms. No significant main effect of maternal sensitivity was found on child pathology (p=.059) but along with other variables, we found it to have a confound influence on child pathology. Maternal sensitivity was negatively correlated with anxio-depressive symptoms (rho= -.417, p=.014). Recent maternal IPV-PTSD was positively correlated with child anxio-depressive symptoms (rho= .339, p=.024). We found a main effect of maternal childhood physical abuse on child pathology (p=.026) and only a positive correlation with child anxio-depressive symptoms (rho= .431, p=.003).
Discussion: Maternal IPV-PTSD predicts higher psychopathology symptoms in children aged 9-15, with children from IPV-PTSD mothers showing more psychopathological symptoms than their non- PSTD counterparts. While boys and girls have similar overall symptom levels, boys tend to show more aggressive symptoms and girls more anxio-depressive symptoms. SES impacts anxio-depressive and aggressive outcomes differently. Maternal sensitivity impacts child pathology, with lower maternal sensitivity correlating to higher child anxio-depressive symptoms. Maternal childhood physical abuse predicts higher overall child psychopathology and is strongly correlated to the development of child anxio-depressive symptoms. More severe current maternal IPV-PTSD is correlated to more child anxio- depressive symptoms.