Does maternal psychopathology bias reports of offspring symptoms? A study using moderated non-linear factor analysis

Mood-state biases in maternal reports of emotional and behavioral problems in their children have been a major concern for the field. However, few studies have addressed this issue from a measurement invariance perspective.

Using data from baseline assessment of the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) study (n = 8,507 mother-child dyads; youth aged 9-11 years), we examined how dimensions of maternal psychopathology, including internalizing problems, were associated with indices of bias in reports of their children's dimensions of internalizing, externalizing, neurodevelopmental, detachment, somatoform psychopathology using moderated non-linear factor analysis. Moderated non-linear factor analyses examined multiple potential biases in maternal reports of youth psychopathology.

Across analyses, we found very small magnitudes of associations between dimensions of maternal psychopathology and biases in reports of child emotional and behavioral problems.

Based on these results, we find little psychometric evidence for maternal psychopathology biasing reports of child behavior problems.