Feeding interaction and psychopathological risk: a mother-child study

INTRODUCTION Consolidated research has shown that maternal psychopathology can be significantly associated with children’s internalizing and externalizing symptoms. This association has been explained by several underpinning mechanisms. However, the bulk of research examining the connections between psychopathological risk from mothers to children have used clinical samples from women who have been diagnosed, leaving normative and sub-threshold populations relatively unstudied. Moreover... AIM The present study aims to assess maternal and children’s psychopathological risks at 8 years in a non- clinical sample as a function of feeding interaction quality at three years of the child. MATERIAL & METHODs 150 mother-child dyads (female children n = 84; mothers’ mean age = 31.73, SD = 2.49) took part to the study. Data on interaction quality were collected at children’s three years of age, while self- report measures were administrated when children were eight years old. Mother-child interaction quality was operationalized through the global score of the Feeding Scale. This observational measure allows the assessment of the child’s and the parent’s dysfunctional behaviors during the meal, with higher scores indicating less adaptive dyadic interactive patterns. Maternal psychopathological symptoms were assessed by means of the subscales and the Global Severity Index (GSI) of the Symptoms Checklist-90-R (SCL-90-R), while children’s symptoms were measured through the Cognitive Behavioral Checklist (CBCL). A number of three-way Loglinear analyses was performed to explore the differences in symptoms distribution as a function of mother-child interaction (i.e., adaptive vs. maladaptive) at three years of the child. CONCLUSIONS Results attested that dyads who presented maladaptive interaction patterns at three years of the child were more likely composed by mothers with higher psychopathological risk and children with symptoms above the clinical range, compared to dyads who had adaptive interaction patterns.