Prevalence and Cokrelates of Depressive Symptoms in Mothers of Young Children Running Head: Maternal Depressive Symptoms

Mothers of young children are at risk for depressive symptoms due to their gender and status as parents of young children. The primary purposes of this study were: (1) to assess the prevalence of depressive symptoms in a sample of mothers with young children; (2) to identify sociodemographic correlates of depressive symptoms among the women; and (3) to determine if chronic stress is associated with depressive symptoms independent of other risk factors. In-home interviews were conducted with 196 mothers of 5and 6-year-old children using the Center for Epidemiologic Studies--Depression Scale (CES-D) and the Everyday Stressors Index (ESI). High depressive symptoms (CES-D 2 16) were reported by 49% of the mothers. Depressive symptoms were highest among mothers who had never married, had less than a high school education, were under 25 years of age, were Black, and had a low income. The ESI was a strong predictor of high depressive symptoms, controlling sociodemographic characteristics. In comparison to mothers reporting a low level of everyday stressors (score = 5), mothers scoring 15 on the ESI were three times more likely to have high depressive symptoms; those scoring 35 were more than 30 times as likely to have high CES-D scores. The results suggest the importance of chronic, daily stressors as correlates of depressive symptoms in mothers of young children and also point to the need for multivariate models when examining predictors of depressive symptoms. MATERNAL DEPRESSIVE SYMPTOMS -2 PREVALENCE AND CORRELATES OF DEPRESSIVE SYMPTOMS IN MOTHERS OF YOUNG CHILDREN Mothers of young children constitute a group at risk for depressive symptoms due to their gender (Weissman & Klerman, 1977) and their status as parents of young children (Hall & Farel, 1988; Hall, Williams, & Greenberg, 1985). Previous studies have reported higher depressive symptoms among women, those with more children, young adults, the unmarried, those with low income, the poorly educated, and the unemployed (Bromet, Solomon, Dunn, & Nicklas, 1982; Eaton & Kessler, 1981; Kaplan, Roberts, Camacho, & Coyne, 1987). Yet, there is considerable inconsistency across studies in the correlates of depression in mothers with young children (Bromet & Cornely, 1984). In this study, the prevalence and correlates of depressive symptoms were examined in such a high risk sample. The prevt..10rne of high depressive symptoms among large community-dwelling samples of women ranged between 17% and 24% (Comstock & Helsing, 1976; Frerichs, Aneshensel, & Clark, 1981). In studies of non-clinical, community samples of mothers of young children conducted in the United States, the prevalence of depressive symptoms varied from as low as 12% (Bromet et al., 1982) using the Research Diagnostic Criteria (Endicott & Spitzer, 1978) to as high as 35% (Orr & James, 1984), 48% (Hall et al., 1985), and 57% (Hall & Farel, 1988) using the Center for Epidemiologic Studies--Depression (CES-D) Scale (Radloff, 1977). Similar findings were reported in studies conducted in the United Kingdom with a variety of measures of psychological/depressive symptoms. Prevaiences ranging from 34% to 52% were found in samples of mothers with young children (Moss & Plewis, 1977; Richman, 1974, 1977, 1978). Because of their high prevalence and the likelihood of depressive symptoms to