Abstract
Expressed emotion (EE) was examined, using the brief Five Minute Speech Sample measure, in families of (1) children with depressive disorders, (2) children with schizophrenia spectrum disorders, and (3) normal controls screened for the absence of psychiatric disorder. Consistent with the hypothesis of some specificity in the association between EE and the form of child disorder, rates of EE were significantly higher among families of depressed children compared to families of normal controls and families of children with schizophrenia spectrum disorders. Within the depressed group, the presence of a comorbid disruptive behavior disorder was associated with high levels of critical EE, underscoring the need to attend to comorbid patterns and subtypes of EE in future research.
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This research was supported by a grant from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation as part of their Network on Risk and Protective Factors in the Major Mental Disorders. The authors wish to express their appreciation to Sybil Zaden and Ana Magana-Amato for their assistance coding the FMSS-EE data, to Gwen Gordon for her assistance with data analysis, and to the families participating in the project.
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Asarnow, J.R., Tompson, M., Hamilton, E.B. et al. Family-expressed emotion, childhood-onset depression, and childhood-onset schizophrenia spectrum disorders: Is expressed emotion a nonspecific correlate of child psychopathology or a specific risk factor for depression?. J Abnorm Child Psychol 22, 129–146 (1994). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02167896
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02167896