Household income and children's mental health outcomes: the mediating role of maternal wellbeing and parent-child relationship quality.

ABSTRACT: Uncertainty remains about the mechanism(s) through which household income influences mental health across the life course. The family stress model suggests the role of parental mental health and child-parent relationship quality may be significant, however few studies have explored this longitudinally. The present study aimed to decompose the pathways from low household income at age 3 to children's mental wellbeing at age 6, via maternal wellbeing (age 4) and parent-child relationship quality (age 5). We included four sweeps of the Growing Up in Scotland Study (n = 3639). Weights and multiple imputation were used. Low income was defined as the two bottom quintiles of equivalised household income. Potential mental health difficulties were determined using the Strengths and Difficulties Que

SUBMITTER: Wilson N 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12647339 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature