Examining the family context of adolescent depressive symptoms and attachment ecurity: the importance of mothers, fathers, and marital intimacy

Depression is one of the most widespread mental health issues for children and adolescents. It is estimated that somewhere between 20 and 50% of all adolescents experience significant, if not clinical, levels of depressive symptoms. An individual’s emotions, self-esteem, physical health, interpersonal relationships, and overall life satisfaction can be profoundly negatively impacted by the presence of depressive symptoms. One of the leading contributors to children’s development of depressive symptoms is the presence of these symptoms in one of their parents and the quality of the parent-child attachment relationship is an important mechanism in the transmission of depression from parent to child. This relationship can be negatively impacted by parental depressive symptoms, which can lead children to form less secure attachments to their parents making them more susceptible to developing depressive symptoms. This cycle of depressive symptoms has been extensively examined with mothers and their children although much less so with adolescent children and almost not at all with fathers. Furthermore, investigations which integrate the theories of attachment and family systems are rare. Chapter 2 in this dissertation provides an overview of the studies that have been conducted using the parent-child attachment relationship as an impactful factor on the relationship between parent and adolescent depressive symptoms. Chapter 3 analyzes the family context in which adolescent depressive symptoms develop through a longitudinal, family model of adolescent depressive symptoms and how they are impacted by numerous individual and dyadic-level variables, including mother and father depressive symptoms, mother- and father-adolescent closeness, and marital intimacy. Results provide important implications about treatment of adolescent depressive symptoms.