2 29 Neural and affective responses to prolonged eye contact with one’s own adolescent child and unfamiliar others Table 2.1 Demographic characteristics All parents Mothers Fathers Mothers vs. fathers1 Mean (SD) / n (%) (n = 79) (n = 44) (n = 35) t / χ2 p Age parent, years 49.87 (4.62) 48.03 (3.89) 52.19 (4.47) 4.43 <.001 Age adolescent, years 16.44 (4.23) 17.19 (5.42) 15.51 (1.51) 0.77 .082 Gender adolescent Boys, n (%) 25 (31.6) 13 (29.5) 12 (34.3) 0.04 .842 Girls, n (%) 54 (68.4) 31 (70.5) 23 (65.7) 1.19 .276 Adolescent depression severity2 8.11 (7.04) 7.07 (6.65) 9.43 (7.40) 1.49 .140 Education of parents Vocational training, n (%) 18 (22.8) 11 (25.0) 7 (20.0) 0.89 .346 Higher education, n (%) 61 (77.2) 33 (75.0) 28 (80.0) 0.41 .522 Note. SD, Standard deviation. 1 p-values were obtained using independent samples t-tests or Chi-square comparisons between mothers and fathers. 2 Assessed with the Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-9; Kroenke et al. (2001)) prior to the first visit in the lab. Procedure Families with an adolescent without psychopathology were recruited via public advertisements and (online) social media, including Facebook and advertisement in the monthly magazine of the Royal Dutch Touring Club (ANWB). Families with an adolescent with MDD/dysthymia were recruited via mental health facilities. Parents and adolescents were briefed about the study and underwent a comprehensive telephone screening during which family circumstances and informed consent were discussed and adolescents were pre-screened for (a history of) psychiatric disorders. Families were invited for two appointments: An assessment day in the lab and an MRI session on a separate day. Prior to the first appointment parents were asked to fill out an online questionnaire battery including demographics and clinical and cognitive measures. During the first appointment, families performed parent-adolescent interaction tasks and filled out additional questionnaires, and parents were screened on current psychopathology with the Mini International Neuropsychiatric Interview (see Supplement S2.1). During the second appointment, parents underwent an MRI scan at the LUMC in Leiden, the Netherlands. Prior to the scan, parents filled out a set of questionnaires, received instructions about the MRI tasks, and performed some practice trials. Parents performed three tasks in the MRI scanner: The eye contact task as described below, a parental empathy task (Wever et al., 2021), and a vicarious social feedback task (van Houtum et al., 2021). Upon completion of the MRI scans, parents were fully debriefed about the goals of the study and received a monetary compensation and travel allowance. Parents provided written informed consent for each individual testing day. The median of days between the first and second appointment was 37 and ranged between 7 and 265 days.
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