Maternal adversity and recent stressful life events in anxious and depressed children.

Poor confiding relations in mothers' own lives, the presence of maternal distress and recent stressful life events focussed on children are all significantly and independently associated with emotional disorder in the school-age child. The probability of being a case is best predicted by considering the contribution of all three factors. When this is done, an additive rather than multiplicative interaction for the three variables is found. The association between these maternal factors and events focussed on the child varies with the presence or absence of caseness. There appears to be no greater probability of being anxious rather than depressed as a consequence of these three stressful factors occurring in the lives of school-age children.