Coping with the stress of parental depression II: adolescent and parent reports of coping and adjustment.

This study examined associations between adolescents' self-reports and parents' reports of adolescents' exposure to family stress, coping, and symptoms of anxiety/depression and aggression in a sample of 78 adolescent offspring of depressed parents. Significant cross-informant correlations were found between adolescents' reports of family stress, their stress responses, and their coping and parents' reports of adolescents' symptoms of anxiety/depression and aggression, but not between parents' reports of adolescents' stress and coping and adolescents' self-reported symptoms. Adolescents' reports of secondary control engagement coping and involuntary engagement stress responses mediated the relation between adolescents' reports of parental stress and parents' reports of adolescents' anxiety/depression symptoms.

Coping with the stress of parental depression: parents' reports of children's coping, emotional, and behavioral problems.

Examined children's coping and involuntary responses to the stress of living with a depressed parent in relation to their symptoms of anxiety/depression and aggression. Sixty-six clinically depressed adults rated their children's (ages 7 to 17 years old; N = 101) coping and involuntary responses to parental stressors and anxiety/depressive and aggressive behavior symptoms. Based on parent report, children of depressed parents had high rates of symptoms of anxiety/depression and aggression, were exposed to moderate levels of parental stressors (parental intrusiveness, parental withdrawal), and responded to the stress of living with a depressed parent in ways that were associated with symptoms of psychopathology.