Household Economic Hardship and Child Mental Health: The Mediating Role of Parents’ Mental Distress in a Southern European City

Previous research has dealt with whether low socioeconomic status directly affects a child’s mental health or if the relationship is mediated by the parent’s mental health. Few studies have used various household economic hardship measures within the same setting. The objectives are first to analyse the mediation effect of parents’ mental health on children’s mental health due to unemployment, material deprivation, and food insecurity, accounting for parenting practices and the neighbourhood environment, and second to identify differences between externalising and internalising mental health disorders. We use cross-sectional data from the Barcelona Health Survey for the year 2016, with a representative sample of 390 children from 4 to 14 years old in Barcelona city. The mental health of the respondent parent is measured with the General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-12 items) and that of the child with the Strength and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ-25 items). Mediation analysis is performed using pathway analysis under the Structural Equation Model. The association of the three economic hardship measures with overall child mental health confirms the mediating role of parents’ mental health. However, a direct effect on internalising mental health disorders remains for severe material deprivation and food insecurity, but not for externalising mental health disorders. The proxies for parenting practices play a moderate role. Violence in the neighbourhood is associated with poorer children’s and parents’ mental health across the models.