Psychosocial aspects of families living with recurring maternal depression and child´s behavior

• Grant number: 11/14030-3
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Start date: November 01, 2011
• End date: October 31, 2012
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Psychology - Psychological Treatment and Prevention
• Principal Investigator: Sonia Regina Loureiro
• Grantee: Paula Mayara Souza Theodoro
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Medicina de Ribeirão Preto (FMRP). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). Ribeirão Preto , SP, Brazil

Abstract

The aim of the study is to characterize the psycho-social aspects of families living with recurring maternal depression, identifying socio-demographic, clinical conditions of mothers and children's resources and their behavioral difficulties. These indicators will be compared to families of children with and without behavioral difficulties, living with maternal depression. This study will evaluate 40 mother-child dyads with those of both sexes and aged from seven to 12 years whose biological mothers have psychiatric clinical history of recurrent depression. The assessment of children's behavior will be done using the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) completed by the mothers, which have the boundary diagnosis clinical depression by Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV (SCID) and answer an additional questionnaire also on socio-demographic family. Children will be assessed using Raven's Coloured Progressive-Scale Special to exclude cognitive impairment. Instrument data will be coded according to the technical standards and procedures further processed by statistical comparison between groups. For the distribution of children in groups deemed to be the total score of the SDQ, G1 being composed of children with difficulties in behavior and G2 by children without behavioral difficulties, with reference to the cut-off collection of SDQ. Data collection is in progress already (30 cases collected), and applying for scientific initiation scholarship is already properly trained to work with it collecting data with mothers and children (10 cases), using questionnaires and application test of cognitive evaluation with children.