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Updated: Aug 6, 2025
Simultaneous Laryngopharyngeal and Conventional Esophageal pH Monitoring
Published on: December 14, 2020
Paediatric gastroesophageal reflux disease and parental mental health: Prevalence and predictors
Elizabeth Gm Aizlewood1, Fergal W Jones1, Rachel M Whatmough1
1Salomons Institute for Applied Psychology, Canterbury Christ Church University, Tunbridge Wells, UK.
Insights
Parents of infants with Gastroesophageal Reflux Disease (GORD) experience high rates of anxiety and depression. Greater self-compassion is linked to improved mental health in these parents, suggesting it as a target for interventions.
Area of Science:
- Pediatric Health
- Mental Health Research
- Parental Well-being
Background:
- Infants with Gastroesophageal Reflux Disease (GORD) often present significant challenges for parents.
- Parental mental health is crucial for infant well-being, yet GORD's impact on parental mental health is not fully understood.
- There is a need to identify psychological factors influencing parental mental health in the context of infant GORD.
Purpose of the Study:
- To determine the prevalence of mental health difficulties in parents of infants with GORD.
- To identify psychological predictors of anxiety, depression, and well-being in this population.
- To lay the groundwork for developing targeted interventions for parents of infants with GORD.
Main Methods:
- A cross-sectional and longitudinal study involving 309 parents of infants with GORD.
- Online psychometric measures assessed self-compassion, illness appraisals, uncertainty, sleep quality, relationship satisfaction, social support, feeding satisfaction, anxiety, depression, and well-being.
- Outcome measures were reassessed after eight weeks in a subset of participants (N=103).
Main Results:
- High prevalence of generalized anxiety disorder (66%) and depressive disorder (63%) among parents at baseline.
- Significant reductions in anxiety and depression were observed after eight weeks.
- Increased self-compassion consistently predicted lower anxiety, lower depression, and better well-being, even after controlling for confounders.
Conclusions:
- Parents of infants with GORD exhibit elevated rates of anxiety and depression compared to general and perinatal populations.
- Self-compassion emerged as a significant and consistent predictor of improved parental mental health.
- Self-compassion is a promising target for intervention development in parents experiencing infant GORD.
Objective:
The current study aimed to estimate the prevalence of common mental health difficulties in parents who have an infant with Gastroesophageal Reflux Disease (GORD), and to identify psychological predictors of parental anxiety, depression, and well-being, as a platform for subsequent intervention development.
Methods:
Parents of infants with GORD (N = 309) completed online psychometric measures of potential predictors (self-compassion, illness appraisals, and illness uncertainty), potential confounders (sleep quality, relationship satisfaction, social support, and infant feeding satisfaction), and mental health outcomes (anxiety, depression, and wellbeing). The outcome measures were repeated eight-weeks later (N = 103).
Results:
At the first time-point, 66% of participants exceed the clinical cut off for generalised anxiety disorder and 63% exceeded that for a depressive disorder. Both had significantly reduced eights-weeks later. Greater self-compassion predicted lower anxiety and depression, and better well-being, in both cross-sectional and longitudinal data, including when all confounders were controlled for. Illness uncertainty and illness appraisals were less consistent predictors. No robust differences were found between parents of infants with silent GORD and those with GORD with visible regurgitation.
Conclusions:
Parents of infants with GORD showed high rates of anxiety and depression, which were elevated compared to those that have been found in perinatal and general population samples. Self-compassion was a consistent predictor of better mental health and has promise as a proximal intervention target. Future research could benefit from examining the efficacy of a compassion-focussed intervention in this population.
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