Parent Perceptions and Parent-Child Interactions in Clinic-Referred Children: A Preliminary Investigation of the Effects of Maternal Depressive Moods

The purpose of the present study was to test a model in which maternal depressive moods were hypothesized to have both a direct effect on parent perceptions of child maladjustment and an indirect effect on child noncompliant behavior through the mother\u27s parenting behavior. Fifty-five mothers and their young clinic-referred children served as Ss. Mothers completed depression and child perception measures and mother-child interactions were observed in the home. A path analysis indicated that the model was a good fit to the data as maternal depression was associated with perceptions of child maladjustment and with parenting behavior which was itself associated with child behavior