Parent Cultural Stress and Childhood Depression in Pediatric Asthma

Abstract

Objective. To assess the relationship between caregiver cultural stress, childhood depression and child asthma control and to investigate whether depression mediates the relationship between caregiver cultural stress and child asthma control. Children of multiracial descent were examined separately in an exploratory analysis. Methods. One-hundred-twenty primary caregivers of children with asthma, as well as their children, from Bronx, New York, were interviewed twice and administered questionnaires related to caregiver cultural stress, childhood depression, child cultural stress and asthma control, as well as demographic information. Results. Caregiver cultural stress (M= .28, SD = +/-.23), child cultural stress (M = .09, SD = +/-.11) and child depression (M= .17, SD = +/-.24) levels were low in the current sample. Caregiver cultural stress was significantly associated with child cultural stress (r = .30, p=.01). Hierarchical regression analysis showed that parent cultural stress accounted for a very small percentage (.4%) of the variance in childhood depression scores when controlling for child age, gender and family income (F(1, 53) = 0.20, p=.66). Analysis of covariance did not show differences between children with three levels of asthma control on caregiver cultural stress (F(2, 108) =.95, p=.39) or child depression (F(2, 54) = .79, p=.46). Mediation analysis could not be performed due to these non-significant variable relationships Analysis of covariance did not show differences between children of multiracial descent and of uniracial descent in their levels of cultural stress (F(3, 109) = .49, p=.67) or depression (F(3, 51) = 1.39, p=.26). Conclusion. Caregiver cultural stress was related to child cultural stress. Children may be affected by their parents' experience of cultural stress. Preventative measures should be employed to protect children from experiencing the stress of their parents. There was no support for relationships between caregiver cultural stress, childhood depression or children's level of asthma control in children of uniracial or multiracial descent.