ORCID Profile
0000-0001-5457-4892
Current Organisations
Deakin University
,
Murdoch Childrens Research Institute
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Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 27-02-2023
DOI: 10.1038/S41598-023-29139-1
Abstract: Personality reliably predicts life outcomes ranging from social and material resources to mental health and interpersonal capacities. However, little is known about the potential intergenerational impact of parent personality prior to offspring conception on family resources and child development across the first thousand days of life. We analysed data from the Victorian Intergenerational Health Cohort Study (665 parents, 1030 infants est. 1992), a two-generation study with prospective assessment of preconception background factors in parental adolescence, preconception personality traits in young adulthood (agreeableness, conscientiousness, emotional stability, extraversion, and openness), and multiple parental resources and infant characteristics in pregnancy and after the birth of their child. After adjusting for pre-exposure confounders, both maternal and paternal preconception personality traits were associated with numerous parental resources and attributes in pregnancy and postpartum, as well as with infant biobehavioural characteristics. Effect sizes ranged from small to moderate when considering parent personality traits as continuous exposures, and from small to large when considering personality traits as binary exposures. Young adult personality, well before offspring conception, is associated with the perinatal household social and financial context, parental mental health, parenting style and self-efficacy, and temperamental characteristics of offspring. These are pivotal aspects of early life development that ultimately predict a child’s long-term health and development.
Publisher: Center for Open Science
Date: 06-11-2020
Abstract: Maternal internalizing symptoms during pregnancy, specifically depression and/or anxiety, are commonly linked to negative affectivity (NA) in infant offspring. These links are commonly attributed to biological effects of the in utero environment on fetal development. However, research suggests that internalizing symptoms before and after pregnancy, as well as in fathers, may also be associated with NA in infant offspring. Such findings suggest greater complexity in transmission than can be explained by biological in utero programming alone. Further, infant NA is often treated as an homogenous construct, yet it covers a range of facets including fear, frustration, sadness, and slow recovery from distress that may each be differentially associated with parent internalizing distress. Here we aimed to (1) meta-analytically quantify associations between maternal and paternal internalizing symptoms and infant offspring NA, (2) examine how associations varied as a function of distinct phenotypic facets of NA, and (3) examine how associations varied by timing of parental symptoms (preconception, antenatal, postnatal) and infant age. Using random-effects meta-analysis, we found that maternal internalizing symptoms were positively associated with infant NA (r = 0.17 [95% CI 0.14, 0.21], 42 studies, 149 estimates). Preliminary evidence from studies of fathers likewise suggested a positive association with infant NA (r = 0.13 [95% CI 0.04, 0.22], 6 studies, 40 estimates). We observed associations with the global infant NA construct, as well as effect modification by infant NA facet (maternal r range .12 to .22 paternal r range .03 to.21). In mothers, there was no evidence of effect modification by timing of internalizing symptoms or infant age in fathers, preliminary associations were larger for postnatal than antenatal symptoms. Further studies of preconception and paternal symptoms are now needed, and we suggest avenues for research to advance understanding of the relations between parent internalizing symptoms and infant NA.
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 2020
DOI: 10.1111/PPE.12602
Abstract: There is increasing evidence that parental determinants of offspring early life development begin well before pregnancy. We established the Victorian Intergenerational Health Cohort Study (VIHCS) to examine the contributions of parental mental health, substance use, and socio-economic characteristics before pregnancy to child emotional, physical, social, and cognitive development. Men and women were recruited from the Victorian Adolescent Health Cohort (VAHCS), an existing cohort study beginning in 1992 that assessed a representative s le of 1943 secondary school students in Victoria, Australia, repeatedly from adolescence (wave 1, mean age 14 years) to adulthood (wave 10, mean age 35 years). Victorian Adolescent Health Cohort participants with children born between 2006 and 2013 were recruited to VIHCS and invited to participate during trimester three, at 2 months postpartum, and 1 year postpartum. Parental mental health, substance use and socio-economic characteristics were assessed repeatedly throughout infant characteristics were assessed postnatally and in infancy. Data will be supplemented by linkage to routine datasets. A further follow-up is underway as children reach 8 years of age. Of the 1307 infants born to VAHCS participants between 2006 and 2013, 1030 were recruited to VIHCS. At VIHCS study entry, 18% of recruited parents had preconception common mental disorder in adolescence and young adulthood, 18% smoked daily in adolescence and young adulthood, and 6% had not completed high school. Half of VIHCS infants were female (48%), 4% were from multiple births, and 7% were preterm (<37 weeks' gestation). Victorian Intergenerational Health Cohort Study is a prospective cohort of 1030 children with up to nine waves of preconception parental data and three waves of perinatal parental and infant data. These will allow examination of continuities of parental health and health risks from the decades before pregnancy to offspring childhood, and the contributions of exposures before pregnancy to offspring outcomes in childhood.
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 12-07-2023
DOI: 10.1111/SPC3.12827
Abstract: Although negative anticipatory emotions are typically seen as risk factors for poorer psychological outcomes over COVID‐19, emotion theorists suggest that this risk may be attenuated if balanced by the experience of positive emotion. Thus, the current study examined whether interactions between positive and negative anticipatory emotions were concurrently associated with psychological distress and greater personal wellbeing osttraumatic growth (PTG) at three distinct periods (i.e., pre‐lockdown, during lockdown, post‐lockdown), and whether associations varied by these three COVID‐19 time periods. The study utilizes two large longitudinal Australian s les, surveyed in 2020 prior to, during, and after a strict 4‐month lockdown that occurred in Australia. Overall, positive emotions attenuated the adverse psychological outcomes arising from higher levels of negative emotion (i.e., higher psychological distress and lower personal wellbeing). Observed effects varied according to COVID‐19 threat exposure. Specifically, the interaction was significantly associated with psychological distress prior to the lockdown for S le 2, and during the lockdown for both s les. The interaction was significantly associated with wellbeing (S le 2) prior to, and during, the lockdown but only marginally associated post‐lockdown. The interaction, however, was not significantly associated with PTG (S le 1). The results suggest that it is valuable for future research to consider greater emotional complexity (i.e., mixed emotions) over COVID‐19, and other stressors more generally, to encompass a more nuanced understanding of resilience.
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 03-12-2020
DOI: 10.1111/AJAD.12981
Abstract: International students comprise an ethnic minority subpopulation who may be at increased risk for the development of gambling problems. This study aimed to explore the psychosocial factors associated with gambling problems in international and domestic university students in Australia. One hundred seventy-three (n = 173) university students (127 domestic, 45 international) completed measures of gambling participation, problem gambling, psychosocial factors (depression, anxiety, perceived social support, loneliness, gambling-related cognitive distortions) and English language difficulties. Gambling participation, but not problem gambling status, was lower in international than domestic students. Only anxiety and cognitive distortions were associated with problem gambling in domestic students and only cognitive distortions were associated with problem gambling in international students. International student status failed to moderate the relationships between any psychosocial factor and problem gambling status. Future research is required to elucidate problem gambling risk and protective factors in this ethnic minority subgroup, with a view to guide culturally sensitive initiatives. (Am J Addict 2019 :00-00).
Publisher: MDPI AG
Date: 21-05-2021
DOI: 10.3390/JCM10112224
Abstract: There is little evidence relating to the effects of adding guidance to internet-based gambling interventions. The primary aim was to compare the effectiveness of an online self-directed cognitive-behavioural gambling program (GamblingLess) with and without therapist-delivered guidance. It was hypothesised that, compared to the unguided intervention, the guided intervention would result in superior improvements in gambling symptom severity, urges, frequency, expenditure, psychological distress, quality of life and help-seeking. A two-arm, parallel-group, randomised trial with pragmatic features and three post-baseline evaluations (8 weeks, 12 weeks, 24 months) was conducted with 206 gamblers (106 unguided 101 guided). Participants in both conditions reported significant improvements in gambling symptom severity, urges, frequency, expenditure, and psychological distress across the evaluation period, even after using intention-to-treat analyses and controlling for other low- and high-intensity help-seeking, as well as clinically significant changes in gambling symptom severity (69% recovered/improved). The guided intervention resulted in additional improvements to urges and frequency, within-group change in quality of life, and somewhat higher rates of clinically significant change (77% cf. 61%). These findings, which support the delivery of this intervention, suggest that guidance may offer some advantages but further research is required to establish when and for whom human support adds value.
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 12-2020
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 2021
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 03-2023
No related grants have been discovered for Stephanie Aarsman.