ARTICLES
The Influence of Maternal Stress and Distress on Disruptive Behavior Problems in Boys

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ABSTRACT

Objective:

The current study examined how self-reported maternal stress and distress are associated with child disruptive behaviors.

Method:

Mother and teacher ratings of child disruptive behavior problems (attention problems, aggression, and delinquency) were collected for 215 male participants, ranging in age from 9 to 12 years. Participating mothers also provided self-report data on socioeconomic status (SES), parenting stress, and distress (depression and anxiety/somatization).

Results:

Low SES was significantly associated with both mother- and teacher-reported child disruptive behavior problems. Regression analyses indicated a relation between parenting stress and mother-reported child disruptive behavior problems, even when controlling for SES. Results also indicated a significant relation between maternal distress and mother-reported child disruptive behavior problems (particularly attention problems), even when controlling for SES and parenting stress. Maternal stress and distress were not significantly related to teacher-reported child disruptive behavior problems.

Conclusions:

Although the lack of an association between teacher-reported behavior problems and maternal stress and distress could be interpreted as a rater bias by these mothers, it may be that the mothers' symptoms are associated with a stressful home environment, thus exacerbating child disruptive behavior problems and eventually leading to a reciprocal relation between symptomatology in mothers and children.

Section snippets

Socioeconomic Disadvantage

Research shows that family income is inversely related to child disruptive behavior problems (Feldman et al., 2000, McGee and Williams, 1999). The long-term impact of socioeconomic disadvantage can be quite negative. Low SES has been linked to poor academic performance and severe disciplinary problems during adolescence (DuBois et al., 1994) and higher prevalence rates of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (Pineda et al., 1999) and conduct disorder (Steiner and Dunne, 1997). SES has also

Participants

Participants were part of a larger sample of a longitudinal intervention project with aggressive children (Lochman and Wells, 2002). Fourth and fifth grade teachers were asked to rate each child in their class on a 5-point Likert scale (range, 1-5) on three aggressive behaviors (verbal aggression, physical aggression, and disruptive behavior) (Lochman, 1992), with a total aggression score ranging from 3 to 15. A risk sample of 183 boys (i.e., ranked in the top 35% of all teacher ratings) and an

Correlations Among Variables

The parenting stress composite was not significantly correlated with the Hollingshead Index (SES) (r = 0.12, p = ns). Maternal depression (BDI Total) was significantly positively correlated with maternal anxiety/somatization (SCL-90-R Anxiety/Somatization Scales composite) (r = 0.70, p < .001).

Correlations among the scales of the CBCL and TRF are presented in Table 1. Correlations ranged from .22 to .67, all significant at the p < .01 or p < .001 level. Higher levels of child disruptive

DISCUSSION

Results indicate that low SES is correlated with boys' disruptive behavior problems in general, across both mother and teacher reports. In addition, high levels of parenting stress, as measured by occurrence and intensity of daily hassles, is associated with a significant amount of unique variance, over and above SES, in mother-reported child disruptive behavior problems. SES and parenting stress were not significantly correlated in this sample, suggesting that these are two distinct

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    Disclosure: Ms. Cotten is an employee of SkillsNET Corporation. The other authors have no financial relationships to disclose.

    This study was funded by a grant provided by the National Institute of Drug Abuse (DA-08453) to Drs. Lochman and Wells. Additional support was provided by grants from the Center for Substance Abuse Prevention (UR65907956, KD1SP08633) and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (R49\CCR418569).

    Correspondence to Dr. Barry, Department of Psychology, University of Southern Mississippi, 118 College Drive, Box 5025, Hattiesburg, MS 39406; e-mail: [email protected].

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