The nature of mother and toddler problems. (ii) Patterns of disturbance and disadvantage.

Prevalence estimates for psychiatric disturbance in mothers and their 2 1/2 year old children and the variations in prevalence associated with marriage quality, social class and the child's developmental level are presented. It was found that both the mother's psychiatric disturbance, and more specifically, depression were associated most strongly with child disturbance, poor marriage quality and low child developmental level. For toddler disturbance, the strong associations were with type and severity of disturbance in mother, social class, marriage quality and low developmental quotient.