The impact of childhood family functioning on anxious, depressive, and obsessive–compulsive symptoms in adulthood among African Americans

•We studied anxious, depressive, and OC symptoms in 180 African American adults.•The Family Assessment Device-Retrospective assessed childhood family functioning.•Difficulties with active coping in childhood were associated with more depression.•Difficulties with communication and emotionality were associated with more anxiety.•Neither construct was associated with OCD severity among those with OCD.

Research suggests that childhood family functioning is related to anxiety and depressive symptoms in adulthood; however this relationship has been unclear when considering OCD symptoms. The Family Assessment Device-Retrospective (FAD-R) is a 53-item measure to assess childhood family functioning in adults. The current study evaluated the reliability of the FAD-R, and investigated anxiety, depressive, and OC symptoms in relation to childhood family functioning in African Americans with OCD and community-dwelling adults (n=180). A confirmatory factor analysis was conducted and displayed variable reliability for the original seven FAD-R subscales. We then performed a principal component analysis to produce the most reliable factor structure, finding that two components instead of the original seven yielded much stronger reliability. The two new subscales were termed “Active Coping” (FAD-R-AC; 21 items) and “Communication and Emotionality” (FAD-R-CE; 10 items), with higher scores representing greater family dysfunction. Partial correlation analyses revealed that higher FAD-R-AC scores were associated with higher depression scores when controlling for OC symptom severity, anxiety, and ethnic identity. Furthermore, higher FAD-R-CE scores were associated with higher anxiety scores when controlling for OC symptom severity, depressive symptoms, and ethnic identity. OC symptom severity was not significantly associated with either FAD-R scale.