Parental symptoms of common mental disorders and children's social, motor, and language development in sub-Saharan Africa.

Full Abstract

BACKGROUND:
There is increasing interest in the social determinants of children's developmental outcomes in developing countries because of the links with schooling, behavioral, and employment outcomes. Yet, little is known about the impact of household and caretaker variables in influencing developmental outcomes in rural, developing country settings.

AIM:
The study examined the relative impact of individual and household variables and caretaker symptoms of common mental disorders on children's personal-social, fine and gross motor, and language development. Subjects and methods:
A total of 431 children aged 3-24 months in a rural Ethiopian setting were studied. Children underwent a developmental assessment and parents independently provided information on household characteristics and were administered anxiety and depression symptom inventories.

RESULTS:
In adjusted multivariable models, maternal symptoms of mental disorders were associated with both global development and most developmental sub-scales (p < 0.01) except language developmental; there was no consistent relation between paternal symptoms of mental disorders and child development. Nutritional stunting was generally a risk factor for lower developmental scores but few household-level variables were associated with child development.

CONCLUSION:
Child development in this setting is strongly associated with child age and maternal depression. If these findings are replicated elsewhere, they may suggest that interventions aimed at improving maternal depression may have an important role to play in efforts to improve child development and to mitigate the intergenerational transmission of poor health in sub-Saharan Africa.

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Author information

Author/s: Hadley, Craig (C); Tegegn, Ayalew (A); Tessema, Fasil (F); Asefa, Makonnen (M); Galea, Sandro (S);

Affiliation: Department of Anthropology, Emory University, Atlanta 30322M, USA. chadley(-atsign-)emory.edu

Journal and publication information

Publication Type: Journal Article

Journal: Annals of human biology (Ann Hum Biol), published in England. (Language: eng)

Reference: -2008 May-Jun; vol 35 (issue 3) : pp 259-75

Dates: Created 2008/06/23; Completed 2008/08/07;

PMID: 18568592, status: MEDLINE (last retrieval date: 11/6/2008)

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MeSH headings (categories)

This article was linked to the MESH Headings shown below.

Age Factors
Anxiety - psychology
Child Behavior Disorders - epidemiology; etiology
Child Psychology
Child Rearing - psychology
Child of Impaired Parents - psychology
Depressive Disorder - psychology
Ethiopia - epidemiology
Father-Child Relations
Fathers - psychology

Humans
Infant
Language Development
Language Development Disorders - epidemiology; etiology
Mother-Child Relations
Mothers - psychology
Motor Skills
Poverty - psychology
Risk Factors
Rural Population

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