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Parent Alcoholism Impacts the Severity and Timing of Children’s Externalizing Symptoms

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Abstract

Although previous studies show that children of alcoholic parents have higher rates of externalizing symptoms compared to their peers, it remains unclear whether the timing of children’s externalizing symptoms is linked to that of their parent’s alcohol-related symptoms. Using a multilevel modeling approach, we tested whether children aged 2 through 17 showed elevated mother-, father- and child-reported externalizing symptoms (a) at the same time that parents showed alcohol-related consequences (time-varying effects), (b) if parents showed greater alcohol-related consequences during the study period (proximal effects), and (c) if parents had a lifetime diagnosis of alcoholism that predated the study period (distal effects). We used integrative data analysis to combine samples from two prospective studies to test these hypotheses. Distal effects of parent alcoholism on increased child externalizing symptoms were large and consistent. In addition, proximal and time-varying effects of parent alcohol symptoms were also found. Implications for preventing escalations in externalizing symptoms among this high-risk population are discussed.

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Notes

  1. This definition of the proximal effects of parents’ alcohol-related consequences can be distinguished from distal effects both conceptually (as described earlier) and methodologically. It is of course true that variance in the proximal effects and overall levels of alcohol-related symptoms are higher in the COA families. Notably, descriptive analyses show a M = 0.17, SD = 0.39 for controls and M = 1.05, SD = 1.28 for COAs on father’s alcohol-related symptoms (proximal effect) and M = 0.09, SD = 0.31 for controls and M = 0.71, SD = 1.14 for COAs on mother’s alcohol-related symptoms. From another perspective, 76% of controls and 33% of COAs had reports of zero on father’s alcohol-related symptoms over the study period, with 86% and 49% doing so, respectively, for mother’s alcohol-related symptoms. Importantly, we tested these effects as unique from one another, so in our analyses we are testing whether these proximal variation in alcohol-related symptoms have predictive utility above and beyond distal effects.

  2. Note that the calibration sample size is larger than the analysis sample size due to the omission of cases in the analytic sample resulting from missing data on predictor variables. The adolescent calibration sample also included the MLS participants who provided symptomatology data but not concurrent reports of parent alcohol-related symptoms, and thus were not used in the current analysis samples.

  3. Age was thus recoded as ranging from -11 to 4 for mother-report analyses and as ranging from -3 to 4 for adolescent-report analyses. For father report analyses, two dummy variables representing age coded the two-piece functional form, with the first coded -5 to 0 to capture change from ages 2 through 7 (and 0 from 7 to 17) and the second coded -6 from ages 2 through 7 and -5 to 4 from ages 8 through 17 to capture change from ages 7 to 17.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, USA

    Patrick J. Curran

  2. University of California at Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, USA

    Wenjing Huang

  3. Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, USA

    Laurie Chassin

  4. University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA

    Robert A. Zucker

  5. University of Victoria, Victoria, Canada

    Andrea M. Hussong

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  1. Andrea M. Hussong
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  2. Wenjing Huang
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  3. Patrick J. Curran
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  4. Laurie Chassin
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  5. Robert A. Zucker
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Correspondence to Andrea M. Hussong.

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This research was supported by National Institute on Drug Abuse Grants R01 DA15398 to XX and R01 DA013148 to XXX. The work was also supported by National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism Grants R37 AA 07065 to XXX and R01 AA016213 to XX. We thank all current and former members of XX group, particularly XX and XX, for suggestions and help with the analysis.

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Hussong, A.M., Huang, W., Curran, P.J. et al. Parent Alcoholism Impacts the Severity and Timing of Children’s Externalizing Symptoms. J Abnorm Child Psychol 38, 367–380 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10802-009-9374-5

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