Attention bias to threat in mothers with emotional disorders predicts increased offspring anxiety symptoms: a joint cross-sectional and longitudinal analysis

There is convincing evidence of the transmission of anxiety and depression from parents to children; however, mechanisms by which this vulnerability is passed on are unclear. Cognitive models and a small body of cross-sectional research suggest that parental attention biases (ABs) may be one mechanism involved in transmission. Longitudinal associations of maternal and offspring ABs with offspring symptoms have been scarcely studied. Forty-three mothers-child dyads were included. All children (7-12 years old) were diagnosis-free while 24 mothers had a lifetime emotional disorder (anxiety or depression) (high risk, HR) and 19 mothers had no psychiatric diagnoses (low risk, LR). This study examined cross-sectional and longitudinal associations of maternal and child AB and child anxiety symptomology at initial and 12-month assessments. ABs were assessed using a visual-probe task with emotional faces. There was a significant cross-sectional but not longitudinal association of increased child anxiety symptoms with increased maternal threat AB for HR but not LR dyads. At the cross-sectional level, increases in HR but not LR offspring anxiety symptomology were associated with maternal threat AB. Larger longitudinal studies are required that examine the interplay between parent-child variables and include multiple time-points of assessment and measures of AB.