Child-parent agreement on the SDQ: The role of child-parent attachment and parental feelings.

OBJECTIVES: Children and their parents often provide divergent reports regarding their mental health on the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ). These discrepancies may impede the diagnostic processes. The present study aimed to explore how a child's attachment to the parent and parental feelings may explain some of the variability between parent's and children's reports on the SDQ. METHODS: Data were collected using self-report questionnaires from 277 children and their parents (n = 421) who were referred to a public mental health clinic. This information was classified into clinical categories (normal and abnormal) and analyzed using multinomial logistic regression. RESULTS: The agreement rates between children and parents on the normality of children were high in general and across gender and age. Insecure attachment to parents positively and significantly predicted the agreement of child and parent reporting abnormality and disagreement when parents reported normality and children reported abnormality. Parental anger positively and significantly predicted disagreement in reports in which parents reported abnormal anger and children reported normal anger. CONCLUSIONS: These findings highlight the importance of assessing informant variability in association with emotional and relationship variables as clinically meaningful information for a clinical diagnosis.

Paternal Feelings and Child's Anxiety: The Mediating Role of Father-Child Insecure Attachment and Child's Emotional Regulation.

The study introduces a path model that links between paternal feelings and child's anxiety symptoms, aiming to test the mediational role of father-child insecure attachment and the child's difficulties in emotional regulation in the occurrence of anxiety disorders among a sample of 148 fathers and their children (65 boys and 83 girls aged 8-18) attending the child psychiatric center of a public hospital. Participants completed a battery of diagnostical and research questionnaires, including the Parental Feelings Inventory (PFI), the Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale (DERS), the Screen for Child Anxiety-Related Emotional Disorders (SCARED), and the Experiences in Close Relationships Scale-Revised Child version (ECR-RC). Using structural equation modeling, we found father's anger to be associated with father-child anxiety attachment, while the latter simultaneously mediated the link to the child's anxiety both directly and indirectly (through emotion regulation [ER]). Consistent with previous evidence, we found insecure attachment and emotional regulation to be uniquely associated with the child's anxiety. The current findings are among the first to demonstrate the interrelations between these variables in the context of father-child relations, suggesting that the child's exposure to paternal anger might contribute to developing difficulties in ER and elevated anxiety due to a father-child insecure-anxious attachment relationship. The theoretical and practical implications of the findings are discussed in light of parental gender.

Unique Trans-fatty Acid Profile in Children With Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder.

Background: Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is the most common developmental disorder in children. Studies suggest an association between fatty acids composition and ADHD pathogenesis. We aimed to investigate whether children diagnosed with ADHD present unique fatty acid profiles in red blood cells (RBC), as compared to children without ADHD. Method: We examined 60 children aged 6-14 years, out of which 32 were diagnosed with ADHD, and 28 were not. Blood was collected from all children to quantify an array of 26 fatty acids from RBC membranes. Fatty acid methyl esters were generated by acid transesterification and analyzed by gas chromatography. Results: We found that children with ADHD presented unique fatty acid profiles on RBC membranes with significantly higher levels of most of the trans-fatty acids (Total trans-fatty acids 0.64 ± 0.21 vs. 0.49 ± 0.18 p = 0.003) and lower levels of docosahexaenoic acid (DHA), as compared to controls (4.06 ± 0.79 vs. 4.68 ± 1.37 p = 0.040). Additionally, total trans-fatty acids were higher in children with extremely severe clinical ADHD condition score, as compared to milder ADHD scores and to control children (0.72 ± 0.18, 0.64 ± 0.20, 0.61 ± 0.22, 0.49 ± 0.18, p = 0.010, accordingly). Conclusion: Children with ADHD have higher levels of trans-fatty acids in RBCs, compared to children without ADHD. This study points to a possible link between trans-fatty acids and ADHD. Understanding these findings and the clinical meaning will potentially contribute to a more targeted dietary intervention.

Patterns of emotion regulation and emotion-related behaviors among parents of children with and without ADHD.

Parent emotion regulation is a crucial factor in child adjustment. This study examined the patterns and correlation of emotion regulation and emotion-related behaviors for parents of children with and without ADHD. The study emphasized specific parental emotion regulation strategies used in parent-child interactions. Of the 177 participating parents 55.4% had at least one child with ADHD. Participants were asked to complete questionnaires measuring their emotion regulation and emotion-related behaviors (supportive vs. unsupportive) with regard to a specific child, noting whether the child had ADHD. Results indicated that parents of children with ADHD used more emotion regulation strategies than parents of children without ADHD. No differences were found in emotion-related behaviors. Patterns of relations between reappraisal and suppression emotion regulation and supportive and non-supportive emotion-related behaviors revealed that parent reappraisal was an effective emotion regulation strategy for both subgroups, whereas suppression was ineffective only for parents of children without ADHD. These findings shed light on the relation of parent reappraisal and suppression strategies to emotion-related behaviors for different parenting experiences and emphasize the importance of addressing parent specific emotion regulation in parenting intervention programs.