ABSTRACT
This study examined early observed parenting and child-care experiences in relation to functioning of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenocortical axis over the long term. Consistent with the attenuation hypothesis, individuals (n = 863) who experienced: (a) higher levels of maternal insensitivity and (b) more time in child-care centers in the first 3 years of life had lower awakening cortisol levels at age 15. Associations were small in magnitude. Nonetheless, results were (a) additive in that both higher levels of maternal insensitivity and more experience with center-based care uniquely (but not interactively) predicted lower awakening cortisol, (b) not accounted for by later caregiving experiences measured concurrently with awakening cortisol at age 15 or by early demographic variables, and (c) not moderated by sex or by difficult temperament.
Subject(s)
Child Care/psychology , Family/psychology , Hydrocortisone/metabolism , Sleep , Wakefulness , Adolescent , Age Factors , Child , Child, Preschool , Female , Humans , Hypothalamo-Hypophyseal System/metabolism , Infant , Infant, Newborn , Male , Maternal Behavior/psychology , Pituitary-Adrenal System/metabolism , Prospective Studies , Regression Analysis , Saliva/metabolism , Socioeconomic Factors , Surveys and Questionnaires , Temperament , Time Factors , United StatesABSTRACT
A growing body of research suggesting a negative association between basal levels of cortisol and persistent antisocial behavior has emerged. The present study examined relations between awakening cortisol levels and antisocial trajectories from ages 5 to 15 years among individuals in the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development. Antisocial behavior was defined by semiparametric group modeling techniques, which revealed antisocial patterns parallel to Moffitt's (1993) taxonomy of antisocial trajectories. In contrast to the claim that biological diatheses are uniquely characteristic of individuals who demonstrate an early-onset pattern of antisocial behavior, our results suggest that individuals with elevated patterns of antisocial behavior between 5 and 15 years of age-irrespective of the timing of onset or desistance-are more likely to evidence lower awakening cortisol levels compared with individuals with persistently low levels of antisocial behavior.
Subject(s)
Antisocial Personality Disorder/metabolism , Hydrocortisone/metabolism , Wakefulness/physiology , Adolescent , Analysis of Variance , Child , Child, Preschool , Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assay/methods , Female , Humans , Male , United StatesABSTRACT
The Mental Health Surveillance Study (MHSS) is an ongoing initiative by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration to develop and implement methods for measuring the prevalence of serious mental illness (SMI) among adults in the USA. The 2008 MHSS used data from clinical interviews administered to a sub-sample of respondents to calibrate mental health screening scale data from the National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH) for estimating the prevalence of SMI in the full NSDUH sample. The mental health scales included the K6 screening scale of psychological distress (administered to all respondents) along with two measures of functional impairment (each administered to a random half-sample of respondents): the World Health Organization Disability Assessment Schedule (WHODAS) and the Sheehan Disability Scale (SDS). The Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV (SCID) was administered to a sub-sample of 1506 adult NSDUH respondents within 4 weeks of completing the NSDUH interview. Results indicate that while SMI prediction accuracy of the K6 is improved by adding either the WHODAS or the SDS to the prediction equation, the models with the WHODAS are more robust. The results of the calibration study and methods used to derive prevalence estimates of SMI are presented.