Intergenerational transmission of lifetime stressor exposure in adolescent girls at differential maternal risk for depression

Abstract

Objective: Adolescent girls who grow up with mothers who are depressed are themselves highly vulnerable to developing depression (i.e., "intergenerational transmission of depression"). Stressor exposure is a strong risk factor for depression, and the transmission of depression risk from mothers to daughters is partly due to mothers experiencing more stressors, increasing daughters' stressor burden. However, research in this area has only assessed recent stressors, making the role of cumulative lifetime stressors unclear.

Method: To address this issue, we recruited 52 dyads of mothers and adolescent daughters, of which 22 daughters were at high maternal risk for depression. Participants completed diagnostic interviews, and daughters additionally self-reported their depressive symptoms. Participants also completed the Stress and Adversity Inventory, a new-generation instrument for assessing cumulative lifetime history of acute and chronic stressors based on the contextual threat approach. We tested moderated mediation models evaluating the conditional indirect effects of mothers' lifetime stressors on high- versus low-risk daughters' depressive symptoms through daughters' lifetime stressors.

Results: As hypothesized, mothers of high-risk (but not low-risk) adolescent daughters who reported more lifetime acute stressors had daughters who reported more lifetime acute stressors and current depressive symptoms. Moreover, this finding was driven specifically by mothers' stressors occurring after their daughters' births. There was also tentative evidence that high-risk daughters' lifetime chronic stressors potentiated the impact of daughters' acute stressors on their depressive symptoms.

Conclusion: These findings provide new insights into how stressful contexts are transmitted intergenerationally.

Keywords: adolescence; depression; environmental influences; family history; stress.

Figure 1.

The general form of the moderated mediation models evaluated in our primary analyses. Daughters’ Stressor Exposures was the mediator, and Daughters’ Depression Risk Category (High vs. Low) was the moderator. Mothers’ Stressor Exposures included total lifetime acute stressors, total lifetime chronic stressors, acute stressors occurring before the birth of their daughters, chronic stressors occurring before the birth of their daughters, acute stressors occurring after the birth of their daughters, and chronic stressors occurring after the birth of their daughters. Daughters’ Stressor Exposures included total lifetime acute stressors and total lifetime chronic stressors. Daughters’ Depressive Symptoms included depressive symptoms assessed using the Mood and Feelings Questionnaire and depressive symptoms assessed using the Kiddie Schedule for Affective Disorders and Schizophrenia.

Figure 2.

The secondary, exploratory model examining the extent to which daughters’ lifetime chronic stressor exposures additionally moderated associations between daughters’ lifetime acute stressor exposures and daughters’ depressive symptoms as assessed using either the Mood and Feelings Questionnaire or the Kiddie Schedule for Affective Disorders and Schizophrenia.