Quality of parent-child relationships and the inflammatory response to acute stress in adolescents

In adolescence, the quality of a parent-child relationship is especially important as it can affect the adolescent’s development in various ways. One of the areas of development it can influence is the development of the immune system. Parent-child relationships achieve this through causing the adolescent stress, as stress has been shown to negatively influence immune regulation and development. With this study we aimed to discover how the quality of parent-child relationships affect an adolescent’s immune response to acute stress and whether this relationship is different between males and females. The sample consisted of 79 participants, all Dutch adolescents, ages 14 to 16, with even numbers of boys and girls. Inflammatory cytokine levels (IL-6, IL-8, IL-10 and TNF-α) served to measure the size of the participant’s immune response to stress. The Trier Social Stress Test (TSST) was used to induce stress in participants and inflammatory cytokine levels were measured through a blood...Show moreIn adolescence, the quality of a parent-child relationship is especially important as it can affect the adolescent’s development in various ways. One of the areas of development it can influence is the development of the immune system. Parent-child relationships achieve this through causing the adolescent stress, as stress has been shown to negatively influence immune regulation and development. With this study we aimed to discover how the quality of parent-child relationships affect an adolescent’s immune response to acute stress and whether this relationship is different between males and females. The sample consisted of 79 participants, all Dutch adolescents, ages 14 to 16, with even numbers of boys and girls. Inflammatory cytokine levels (IL-6, IL-8, IL-10 and TNF-α) served to measure the size of the participant’s immune response to stress. The Trier Social Stress Test (TSST) was used to induce stress in participants and inflammatory cytokine levels were measured through a blood prick procedure at both pre- and post- TSST. The Network of Relationships Inventory (NRI) measured the quality of the parent-child relationship, where a majority of participants reported on their relationship with their mother. A Repeated Measures Analysis of Covariance (RMANCOVA) was performed, with the quality of the parent-child relationship and the adolescent’s BMI as covariates, and sex of the adolescent as the between-group variable. Quality of parent-child relationship did not affect the change in inflammatory cytokine levels between pre- and post- TSST, nor was this relationship different between boys and girls. However, IL-6 and TNF-α levels were generally higher in boys than in girls. To conclude, we did not find adolescent’s immune responses to stress to be affected by the quality of their parent-child relationship. We, furthermore, did not find the sex of the adolescent to play a role in the aforementioned relationship. Instead, we found that boys, ages 14 to 16, generally have higher levels of cytokines IL-6 and TNF-α than girls, ages 14 to 16. These findings further our understanding of sex-based differences in inflammatory responses, and sets precedent for further exploration of the mechanisms through which parent-child relationships affect an adolescent’s immune responses to stress.Show less

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Quality of parent-child relationships and the inflammatory response to acute stress in adolescents