Adverse life events, area socio-economic disadvantage, and adolescent psychopathology: The role of closeness to grandparents in moderating the effect of contextual stress

Abstract

The study, using data from 801 11-16-year-olds clustered in 68 schools across England and Wales, tested whether closeness to grandparents moderates the association between contextual stress and adolescent psychopathology and prosocial behavior, measured with the strengths and difficulties questionnaire (SDQ). Contextual stress was measured at both school area level (assessed with the index of multiple deprivation) and child level (assessed, as life stress, with the number of proximal and distal adverse life events experienced). At baseline, area stress (multiple deprivation) was unrelated to psychopathology (SDQ), and although both proximal (during the last 12 months) and distal (before the last 12 months) life stress was associated with broad and specific child psychopathology, the association with proximal life stress was stronger. Closeness to the most significant grandparent moderated both the effect of proximal life stress on hyperactivity and broad psychopathology, and the effect of the interaction between distal and proximal life stress on broad and externalizing psychopathology. These findings suggest that the role of grandparents deserves further attention in future investigations of the development of resilience in youth.

The Association Between Socioeconomic Disadvantage and Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD): A Systematic Review

“…The large variety in prevalence rates is likely to reflect differing ADHD measures and potentially geographic variation between studies; In a German sample, DSM-IV prevalence is reported [50]; in Colombia a DSM symptom questionnaire was used in conjunction with the Conners' scale [51], and Ornoy [52] utilised the Conners' questionnaire with a cut-off point of 21 and over in an Israeli sample. Using the Duncan Socioeconomic Index, one study found no significant difference of SES between children with and without ADHD [53], similarly one study did not find an association between Index of Multiple Deprivation (IMD) and hyperactivity [54], however two studies found an association between low SES and ADHD [55,56].…”

Epigenetics in Developmental Disorder: ADHD and Endophenotypes

“…Early adverse stress trauma environments are implicated in ADHD over national boundaries [122–124]. Deprivation in social and environmental conditions may perturb early cellular patterns of neurodevelopment that are manifested as disorder expression in later life [125], with aspects of ADHD originating in early deprivation [126,127].…”

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“…Both models had acceptable variance inflation factor and tolerance values (Field, 2009). In block 1, VIF ranged from 1.01 to 1.02 and tolerance ranged from .98 to .99.…”