Differential Reporting of Adolescent Stress as a Function of Maternal Depression History

Abstract

The depression–distortion hypothesis posits that depressed mothers report child characteristics in a negatively-biased manner, motivating research on discrepant reporting between depressed mothers and their children. However, the literature has predominately focused on report discrepancies of youth psychopathological and behavioral outcomes, with limited focus on youth stress despite the marked increase of stressful events during adolescence. The current study investigated whether the presence versus absence of a maternal history of major depressive disorder differentially influenced reporting of adolescent stress when compared to her child’s report, utilizing a community sample of diverse adolescents. As hypothesized, mothers with a history of depression were more likely to report more youth stress than their children reported. Specifically, mothers with a history of depression were more likely than nondepressed mothers to report more familial, social, and youth-dependent stressors relative to their children; nondepressed mothers were more likely to report less independent stressors than their children.