Mother’s Treatment for Depression Can Affect Children’s Symptoms
Studies have found that when a depressed mother’s symptoms remit, her children are less likely to show psychiatric symptoms. A new study by Myrna M. Weissman and colleagues in the American Journal of Psychiatry randomized 76 mothers to treatment with escitalopram, bupropion, or a combination of the two, and assessed the impact of the mothers’ treatment on their 135 children (aged 7–17).
There were no significant differences in the mothers’ symptoms or remission, but children’s depressive symptoms and functioning improved more if their mothers received (only) escitalopram. Only in that group was a mother’s improvement associated with her children’s improvement.
Mothers in the escitalopram group reported greater improvement in their ability to listen and talk to their children compared to the mothers in other groups, and the children of the mothers in the escitalopram group reported that their mothers were more caring.
Children of mothers with low negative affect improved significantly, while children of mothers with high negative affect only improved if their mothers were in the escitalopram group.
The authors suggest that for a mother’s improvement to help her children’s symptoms, her anxious distress and irritability must be reduced, and these may be better targeted with escitalopram than bupropion.
