Our data suggest that depression impacts on maternal emotional availability during remission, which might represent a trait characteristic of depression. Mothers with depression in remission and additional severe childhood abuse were particularly affected. These findings may contribute to the understanding of children's vulnerability to develop a depressive disorder themselves.

The topic of therapist training has been relatively neglected in the research literature. Similarly, the related issue of the measurement of the outcome of training, especially therapist competence, has been largely overlooked. Data supporting the effectiveness of various methods of clinician training and those providing estimates of the level of competence achieved by clinicians are scarce. Validated scalable methods for the measurement of clinician outcomes such as competence are required to evaluate both existing and new methods of training. This study focuses on the development and testing of an online measure (eMeasure) to assess therapists' applied knowledge of Enhanced Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (CBT-E), a transdiagnostic evidence-supported treatment for the full range of eating disorders. The eMeasure meets the stringent requirements of the Rasch model and has three equivalent versions making it suitable for repeat testing of trainees in outcome studies. Preliminary best cut points to distinguish between those who are competent and those who are not are identified. While the present work focused on CBT-E, the method described may be used to develop and test other measures relating to therapist competence.

The study addresses the impact of maternal early life maltreatment (ELM) and maternal history of depression (HoD) on offspring's mental health. Maternal sensitivity was examined as a potential mediator explaining the relationship between maternal ELM, maternal HoD and child psychopathology. Participants were 194 mothers with and without HoD and/or ELM as well as their children between 5 and 12 years. Maternal sensitivity was assessed using the Emotional Availability Scales. Parent and teacher ratings were utilized to assess child psychopathology. Path analyses showed an indirect effect of maternal HoD on parents' ratings of child psychopathology with maternal sensitivity as mediating variable. In contrast, maternal ELM was directly linked to teachers' ratings of child psychopathology; this effect was not mediated by maternal sensitivity. Our results indicate that the impact of maternal HoD, maternal ELM, and maternal sensitivity on offspring psychopathology might vary depending on the context in which child psychopathology is assessed.

Maternal impairments in areas of parenting which possibly developed during acute depression persist even after remission of acute affective symptoms. Interventions should target parenting stress and sensitivity in parents with prior depression.

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