Dad’s Depression Can Also Influence Child’s Health

While the multiple negative consequences of maternal depression on a child's mental health have been explored in study after study, until now, the implication of fathers' depressive symptoms have not been evaluated in detail.

The effect of a parent's depression on a child's mental health is discussed in a study by NYU School of Medicine researchers in the online edition of Maternal and Child Health Journal.

In the study, researchers discuss child outcomes when either or both parents are depressed, and expand on the association between paternal depression and the previously undocumented role of unemployment.

In late 2011, Michael Weitzman, M.D. and his co-authors identified, for the first time ever, in a large and nationally representative sample, increased rates of mental health problems of children whose fathers had depressive symptoms.

In that paper, 6 percent of children with neither a mother or a father with depressive symptoms, 15 percent of those with a father, 20 percent of those with a mother, and 25 percent of children with both a mother and a father with depressive symptoms had evidence of emotional or behavioral problems.

"While the finding of increased rates of mental health problems among children whose fathers had depressive symptoms was not surprising in our earlier study, the fact that no prior large scale studies had investigated this issue is truly remarkable, as is the finding that one out of every four children with both a mother and a father with symptoms of depression have mental health problems" said Weitzman.

Dad's depression may rub off on kids Doctors and researchers have known for years that children are more likely to develop mental-health problems if their mother has struggled with depression. But what if it's the father who's depressed?

According to a new study - one of the first to examine mental-health patterns in a nationally representative sample of dads and kids - a child's odds of developing emotional or behavioral problems increase by as much as 70% if the father shows signs of depression. That's smaller than the increased risk associated with depressed moms, but it's still cause for concern, researchers say.

"For years we've been studying maternal depression and how it affects children, but the medical community has done a huge disservice by ignoring fathers in this research," said the study's lead author, Michael Weitzman, a professor of pediatric medicine at New York University, in New York. "These findings reinforce what we already assumed - that fathers matter, too, and they matter quite a lot."

He also noted that the findings highlighted "the urgent need to recognize the roles of fathers in the lives of children and families in clinical and public policy formulation and implementation, to further explore ways in which the mental health of fathers influence the health and function of our nation's children, and to structure our health and human services so as to identify and effectively treat fathers who are depressed or suffering from other mental health problems.