Mental health in Adulthood: VAriability in Neurodevelopment and Resilience (MAVAN-R)
Adult Assessment Protocol (22 Years)
We thank all MAVAN families who have graciously lent us their time over the past two decades. Now that the MAVAN children are (or will become) adults, we are once again seeking their assistances (and their mothers and a partner/close friend) in helping us understand the developmental pathways from pregnancy to adult mental health functioning. The newly established Mental health in Adulthood: VAriability in Neurodevelopment and Resilience (MAVAN-R), the adult continuation of the MAVAN study will assess the mental health functioning of the MAVAN ‘children’ when they are 22 years of age. With your help, we can strive towards reducing the rates of mental health disorders in young adults.
Why continue your participation in our research study?
The pandemic shown a spotlight on a major problem for young adults in Canada – mental health problems. While rates for physical disorders, such as heart disease, have dropped in the past 30 years, rates of mental health disorders have remained stable (even increasing since the pandemic).
Your past participation and your participation now that you are an adult can help us try to reduce the rates of adult mental health problems in Canada and worldwide. By continuing to participate in this study, you will be joining 150,000 other young adults from Canada, Europe, Asia, and Australia in helping us find ways to reduce mental health problems in adults.
How?
Our team, and other scientists around the world we are closely working with, believe two important things need to be better understood to reduce adult mental health problems: i) early life risk factors for mental health problems; and ii) Replicating findings across studies.
- Early Life Risk Factors
- Most adult mental health problems start when the person is a child or teen.
- Scientists now understand that what happens to a mother during pregnancy can have lasting effects on her child’s development
- Scientists also understand that certain people are more genetically susceptible to developing a mental health problem and/or to their environment (both positive and negative experiences).
- Scientists also understand that mental health problems are the results of many factors interacting together.
- The study you and your mother are part of – Maternal Adversity, Vulnerability and Neurodevelopment (MAVAN) – was designed to study how what happened during a mother’s pregnancy (Maternal Adversity) combines with her child’s genetic profile (Vulnerability) to produce behaviors in childhood (Neurodevelopment). In essence, MAVAN was designed to study potential risk factors for later adult mental health problems.
- MAVAN started with 590 mother-child pairs recruited over 10 years. The mother-child pairs were assessed at multiple times: 3, 6, 12, 18, 24, 36, 38, 60, and 72 months. The children were assessed when they were 13 years of age. Mother-child pairs were assessed twice during the COVID pandemic.
- Major findings made possible by the participation of you and your mother.
- Almost all children (94%) demonstrated positive temperaments. However, increased maternal adversity was associated with poor temperament, but only in children who are genetically more likely to have mental health problems.
- Like other studies, 60% of children were securely attached to their mothers. Insecure attachment was more likely when mothers were less sensitive to the children’s behavior. But, increased maternal sensitivity reduced the likelihood of children genetically susceptible to the effects of their environment developing an insecure attachment when their mothers experienced high levels of adversity during their pregnancies.
- Increased maternal adversity was linked to more emotional problems in children, particularly for children who had poor temperaments as infants.
- Overall, children exhibited high rates of resilience. 90% a positive self-evaluation of the abilities; 80% deemed themselves to be hopeful in being able to complete a difficult task; and 65% remained motivated to work on a difficult task even after failing. Maternal adversity only influenced resiliency in children who were genetically susceptible to their environments.
2. Replicating findings across studies
- Humans are complicated, so are what determines why one person will develop a mental health problem while another person who faced very similar circumstances does not is difficult.
- What is needed are consistent findings across many studies worldwide to understand why one person is more likely than another to develop a mental health problem. This can only occur when the findings from many studies are examined together.
- Dr Ashley Wazana, the person in charge of the current study we hope you participate in, called Mental health in Adulthood: VAriability in Neurodevelopment and Resilience (MAVAN-R) – the adult version of MAVAN, is examining the findings of 8 large international studies from Canada, Europe, Asia, and Australia to find consistent findings. This larger study is called DREAM BIG and contains maternal adversity, child and teen data like what that you and your mother provided us when you were younger. These studies have either already collected information on adult mental health functioning, or like MAVAN-R, are currently collecting this information.
- By participating in the MAVAN-R study you, and another 150,000 young adults from around the world, will be assisting us in helping find the consistent early life risk factors that can be used to develop effective prevention/intervention practices that will reduce mental health problems in adults.
- Major replicated findings about early risk factors and child mental health functioning made possible by the participation of you and your mother
- Genes can inform us about one’s risk for developing a mental health problem but not which problem
- Increased maternal adversity is associated with mental health problems, particularly depressive and anxiety symptoms.
- Increased maternal adversity is associated with ADHD
- Increased maternal adversity is associated with slower brain development but only in people who are genetically susceptible to developing ADHD
- Positive maternal mental health during pregnancy is associated with more positive (protective) brain development
- These replicated findings demonstrate the need for prevention/intervention program for pregnant women
What will we ask you to do?
When you are 22, we will ask you to complete two sets of questionnaires about your current mental health (positive and negative aspects), your relationships, your cognitions, and personality. You will also be asked to undergo a semi-structured interview about your mental health functioning and complete a few tasks to assess your executive functioning abilities. All tasks will be completed online or virtually. You can complete all or some of these tasks. You will be asked to provide DNA saliva samples. Finally, we will ask you to provide permission for our mother and/or partner/close friend to compete questionnaires about you.
