ArticleBMC psychology2026
Impact of parental adverse childhood experiences on offspring anxiety and depressive symptoms: a three-year longitudinal study.
Article in BMC psychology, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
0 citing papers in PubMed.
No citing paper in PubMed yet.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundResearch indicates the intergenerational effects of parents’ adverse childhood experiences on anxiety and depressive symptoms in offspring. However, few studies have investigated the longitudinal mechanisms linking parents’ adverse childhood experiences and offspring anxiety and depressive symptoms. This study aimed to explore the longitudinal link between parents’ adverse childhood experiences and offspring anxiety and depressive symptoms through a series of mediating effects of parents’ psychological distress and children’s sleep problems in Chinese parent–child dyads.
methods36% of the participants were lost to follow up. A total of 539 parent–child dyads participated in three survey waves, each one year apart. Parents completed measures on adverse childhood experiences and psychological distress at T1 (2022), children’s sleep problems at T2 (2023), and children’s anxiety and depressive symptoms at T3 (2024). Chain mediation analysis was conducted using Hayes' PROCESS macro (Model 6).
resultsWe found that the total effect of this model was 0.21 (95% CI [0.07, 0.35]). Moreover, parental psychological distress and children’ sleep problems mediated the associations between parents’ adverse childhood experiences and children’s anxiety and depressive symptoms, separately (b = 0.13, 95% CI = [95% CI [0.04, 0.20]; b = 0.03, 95% CI = [0.01, 0.06]) and sequentially (chain mediation effect = 0.01 (95% CI [0.01, 0.03]).
conclusionsThis study underscores the significance of parents’ psychological distress and children’s sleep problems in the pathway between parents’ adverse childhood experiences and offspring anxiety and depressive symptoms. Consequently, findings highlight potential targets for preventive interventions to parents exposed to adverse childhood experiences to prevent anxiety and depressive symptoms and sleep problems in children.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.