Correlates of expressed emotion in mothers of clinically-referred youth: an examination of the five-minute speech sample.

Background: Most studies applying the adult-derived 'expressed emotion' (EE) measure to children have combined criticism (CRIT) and emotional overinvolvement (EOI). Yet, some of the parent behaviors coded as EOI and shown to have negative implications for parents and their adult children (e.g., multiple positive comments about the son or daughter) may be normative and benign for parents and their juvenile children. Thus, EOI, as currently operationalized, may not be related to child psychopathology in the way CRIT is.

Method: We tested this possibility, separating CRIT and EOI and examining the individual scoring criteria for each in relation to psychopathology factors in a sample of 258 clinically-referred children aged 7-17.

Results: Whereas each of the four CRIT criteria related positively to maternal reports of child psychopathology, especially externalizing problems, only two of the five EOI criteria were positively related to child psychopathology, and one (positive comments) was negatively related. Structural Equation Modeling findings supported a model in which CRIT partially mediates the relation between maternal psychopathology and child externalizing symptoms.

Conclusions: Overall, the results suggest that EE may contribute to the study of parent-child relations and child psychopathology, but that a developmental adjustment may be required in the way EE is operationalized for use with juvenile samples.