It has been suggested that elevated maternal social anxiety may play a disorder-specific role in maintaining childhood social anxiety disorder (SAD)

The gap

Evidence profile

Sourced from the abstract and future-work section and stated challenges and discussion of the source papers, classified as general, drawn from work published between 2018 and 2025, spanning 4 journals. Those papers have been cited 64 times in total.

Supporting evidence — 6 representative gaps

• Symptoms of social anxiety, depression, and stress in parents of children with social anxiety disorder (2018) · British Journal of Clinical Psychology · cited 12× · doi

  OBJECTIVES: It has been suggested that elevated maternal social anxiety may play a disorder-specific role in maintaining childhood social anxiety disorder (SAD), but few studies have examined whether mothers of children with SAD are more socially anxious than mothers of children with other anxiety disorders (ANX).

  generalabstractevidence 5/5
  Keywords: anxiety social disorder mothers children objectives elevated maternal play specific role maintaining childhood examined whether
• Maladaptive mother–child interactions in mothers with remitted major depression are associated with blunted amygdala responses to child affective facial expressions (2025) · Psychological Medicine · cited 1× · doi

  Investigating the effects of ongoing depression on maternal sensitivity and brain responses, - Examining the relationship between maternal sensitivity and child outcomes in mothers with a history of depression, - Developing interventions to improve maternal sensitivity and brain responses in mothers with a history of depression

  generalfuture-work sectionevidence 5/5
  Keywords: investigating effects ongoing depression maternal sensitivity brain responses
• Psychological distress in the neonatal intensive care unit: a meta-review (2024) · Pediatric Research · cited 43× · doi

  Maternal psychological distress may have long lasting effects on infant health and differs from that of fathers, who require as much attention as mothers Little is known about emotional stress in siblings and sex and gender minority group peoples Few interventions showed conclusive effectiveness in reducing psychological distress with combination interventions showing more effectiveness than single interventions.

  generalabstractevidence 5/5
  Keywords: interventions psychological distress effectiveness maternal long lasting effects infant health differs fathers require attention mothers
• Effects of Maternal Depression and Sensitivity on Infant Emotion Regulation: The Role of Context (2025) · Children · cited 3× · doi

  employing longitudinal designs to track the developmental pathways from maternal depression and sensitivity to infant ER across time - exploring a wider range of ER strategies, including physiological measures - investigating the role of paternal mental health and sensitivity, as well as the influence of broader family sociodemographic and environmental factors - examining how co-occurring anxiety may uniquely or interactively affect maternal sensitivity and infant ER

  generalfuture-work sectionevidence 5/5
  Keywords: employing longitudinal designs track developmental pathways maternal depression
• Effects of Maternal Depression and Sensitivity on Infant Emotion Regulation: The Role of Context (2025) · Children · cited 3× · doi

  One challenge is the complexity of assessing infant emotion regulation behaviors in different emotional contexts. Another challenge is the need to control for various factors that may influence the relationship between maternal depression, sensitivity, and infant emotion regulation. The study also faced the challenge of recruiting a representative sample of mothers with and without depression.

  generalstated challengesevidence 5/5
  Keywords: one challenge complexity assessing infant emotion regulation behaviors
• Maternal depression during the perinatal period and its relationship with emotion regulation in young adulthood: An fMRI study in a prenatal birth cohort (2025) · Psychological Medicine · cited 2× · doi

  Our findings are limited by the design of the current study and do not allow us to make any conclusions about the relationship between maternal depression occurring before or after these 4 sen- sitive periods and emotion regulation skills in the offspring or about the relationship between emotion regulation skills in the mother and the young adult offspring.

  generaldiscussionevidence 5/5
  Keywords: relationship emotion regulation skills offspring limited design current allow make conclusions maternal depression occurring sitive

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