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Depressive symptoms are the most common mental disorder among adolescents, and its prevalence has been increasing in recent years. Although childhood maltreatment is a contributing factor to depressive symptoms among adolescents, the underlying mechanism of how this factor causes depressive symptoms is unclear. This study aimed to investigate the mediating effects of parent-child relationship on the association between childhood maltreatment and depressive symptoms among adolescents and to identify how sex and only child status affect this association. A total of 14,500 middle school students were randomly selected from four cities (Shenzhen, Zhengzhou, Nanchang, and Guiyang) in China. A survey questionnaire was administered to collect information on childhood maltreatment, parent-child relationship, and depressive symptoms. Pearson's correlation analysis was used in analyzing the relationship, Bootstrap method was used to test the mediating effects. A moderated mediation analysis has been used to determine the moderated mediation effect. Childhood maltreatment significantly negatively correlated with parent-child relationship and positively correlated with depressive symptoms (P < 0.001). The indirect effect of parent-child relationship accounted for 20.60% of the total effect between childhood maltreatment and depressive symptoms in all respondents and differed by sex (boys, 17.00%; girls, 25.23%) and only child status (only child, 15.61%; child with siblings, 23.49%). Besides, the indirect effect of the mediation model was moderated by sex and only child status. Childhood maltreatment increased the risk of depressive symptoms, and this relationship was partially mediated by parent-child relationship, sex and only child status have moderated the indirect relationship. These findings showed efforts aimed at enhancing the parent-child relationship may prevent or reduce the prevalence of depressive symptoms among adolescents, especially in girls and children with siblings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous research suggests that maternal parenting stress is a significant predictor of social-emotional problems in children. However, little is known regarding the mother-child relationship and the effect of maternal adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) on this association. Three waves of longitudinal panel data were collected from 2893 Chinese preschoolers with a follow-up interval of 6 months. The mothers of preschoolers were asked to complete anonymous questionnaires concerning demographic variables, maternal ACEs and parenting stress in Wave 1, mother-child relationships in Wave 2, and children's social-emotional problems in Wave 3. The parallel mediation model was conducted to analyze the mediating role of three dimensions of mother-child relationships, and the moderation model was conducted to examine the moderating role of maternal ACEs. The results showed that maternal parenting stress predicted children's social-emotional problems directly or indirectly through the mother-child relationship, with an intimate mother-child relationship mediating this main effect negatively but a conflicted and dependent mother-child relationship mediating this main effect positively. In addition, moderating results indicated that the main effect of maternal parenting stress on children's social-emotional problems was more marked among participants with at least one maternal ACEs than those without maternal ACEs. Furthermore, the moderating effect was only detected in children whose mothers had a high school education or less. The subjectivity of mothers' reports may somewhat reduce the credibility due to the possible overestimation or underestimation of children's social-emotional problems. These findings provide new evidence for the effects of maternal parenting stress on children's social-emotional development and highlight the need for more attention to children with mothers having ACE exposure, lower educational level and poor parent-child relationships. • There is a paucity of literature assessing social-emotional problems in Chinese preschool children. This study assessed social-emotional development in preschool children in Anhui Province, China, using the Ages and Stages Questionnaire: Social Emotions, Second Edition (ASQ:SE2), which has been shown to be a standard screening tool to identify children who may have delayed or atypical social-emotional development. • This study is the first to examine the mediating role of mother-child relationships and the moderating role of maternal ACEs on the association between maternal parenting stress and children's social-emotional developmental problems in a sample of Chinese preschoolers, which has important implications for exploring the complex and diverse family environmental risk factors that impede children's social-emotional development. • By using a stratification strategy of maternal literacy to examine the interaction between maternal parenting stress and ACE, this study helps identify an important risk group of mothers with high ACE exposure and low educational attainment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]