Comparison of severe life stress in depressed mothers and non-mothers: Do children matter?

Given the high rates of maladjustment among children of depressed mothers, parenting is likely to cause significant life stress in this population, po tentially worsening the coarse of mothers' depression. The present study is a comparison of severe life stress in 38 mothers and 62 non-mothers receiv ing treatment for recurrent major depression. Life stress was assessed usin g the Life Events and Difficulties Schedule [Brown and Harris, 1978a]. We h ypothesized that mothers would evidence a greater number of severe life eve nts and marked difficulties both in the year prior to the onset of their de pressive index episode and in the time period following the onset of their current depressive episode. Prior to depression onset, mothers reported a s ignificantly greater number of entrapping difficulties, bat not marked diff iculties, severe events, entrapping events, or humiliating events. However, following the onset of depression, mothers experienced a significantly gre ater number of severe events, entrapping events, marked difficulties, and e ntrapping difficulties, but not humiliating events. Mothers' elevated level s of stress were attributable to child-related stress, predominantly relate d to children's psychological and behavioral problems. Our findings suggest that comprehensive treatment for mothers with major depression needs to ad dress their parenting style and any psychological problems experienced by t heir children.