Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Journal of Affective Disorders journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jad Research paper Cognitive-affective depression and somatic symptoms clusters are differentially associated with maternal parenting and coparenting Diogo Lamela a, ⁎ , Inês Jongenelen a , Ana Morais a , Bárbara Figueiredo b a Lusófona University of Porto, Portugal b University of Minho, Portugal ARTICLE INFO Keywords: Depression Somatic symptoms Coparenting Maternal competence Parenting Intimate partner violence Child physical maltreatment ABSTRACT Background: Both depressive and somatic symptoms are significant predictors of parenting and coparenting problems. However, despite clear evidence of their co-occurrence, no study to date has examined the association between depressive-somatic symptoms clusters and parenting and coparenting. The current research sought to identify and cross-validate clusters of cognitive-affective depressive symptoms and nonspecific somatic symptoms, as well as to test whether clusters would differ on parenting and coparenting problems across three independent samples of mothers. Method: Participants in Studies 1 and 3 consisted of 409 and 652 community mothers, respectively. Participants in Study 2 consisted of 162 mothers exposed to intimate partner violence. All participants prospectively completed self-report measures of depressive and nonspecific somatic symptoms and parenting (Studies 1 and 2) or coparenting (Study 3). Results: Across studies, three depression-somatic symptoms clusters were identified: no symptoms, high depression and low nonspecific somatic symptoms, and high depression and nonspecific somatic symptoms. The high depression-somatic symptoms cluster was associated with the highest levels of child physical maltreatment risk (Study 1) and overt-conflict coparenting (Study 3). No differences in perceived maternal competence (Study 2) and cooperative and undermining coparenting (Study 3) were found between the high depression and low somatic symptoms cluster and the high depression-somatic symptoms cluster. Conclusions: The results provide novel evidence for the strong associations between clusters of depression and nonspecific somatic symptoms and specific parenting and coparenting problems. Cluster stability across three independent samples suggest that they may be generalizable. The results inform preventive approaches and evidence-based psychotherapeutic treatments. 1. Introduction Depression involves the presence of cognitive, affective, and physical symptoms, including fatigue, appetite and weight changes, and sleep disturbance (American Psychiatric Association, 2013; Beck and Bredemeier, 2016). Individuals with depression may also present other somatic complaints beyond those established as diagnostic criteria for depressive disorders. These nonspecific somatic symptoms include, for example, dizziness, nausea, and pain such as headaches, stomach pain, chest pain, and poorly localized pain (Harshaw, 2015; Novick et al., 2013). Prior research has showed the clinical utility of examining nonspecific somatic symptoms in the assessment of depres- sive disorders. In particular, these symptoms are frequently the first and/or the main symptoms of depression presented in primary care settings (Kirmayer et al., 1993; Simon et al., 1999; Tylee and Gandhi, 2005), and they may also be more predictive of cognitive-affective depressive symptoms than specific somatic symptoms of depression (Novick et al., 2013). This substantial overlap between cognitive-affective depressive symptoms and nonspecific somatic symptoms is also documented in community and clinical samples of mothers (Apter et al., 2013; Brown and Lumley, 2000; Eisenach et al., 2008; Giallo et al., 2016; Webb et al., 2008; Williamson et al., 2014). For example, a community study with pregnant women revealed that depressed women exhibited a higher accumulation of different nonspecific somatic symptoms than women with lower cognitive-affective depressive symptoms (Apter et al., 2013). In addition, a cross-sectional study with American mothers showed that mothers with more depressive symptoms reported higher levels of severity in headaches, nausea, and backaches than those with lower depressive symptoms during the first year postpartum (Webb http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jad.2017.05.006 Received 14 July 2016; Received in revised form 24 April 2017; Accepted 6 May 2017 ⁎ Correspondence to: School of Psychology, Education and Sports, Lusófona University of Porto, Rua Augusto Rosa, 24, 4000-099 Porto, Portugal. E-mail address: lamela@ulp.pt (D. Lamela). Journal of Affective Disorders 219 (2017) 37–48 Available online 10 May 2017 0165-0327/ © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. MARK