Citation

McLaughlin KA, Gadermann AM, Hwang I, Sampson NA, Al-Hamzawi A, Andrade LH, Angermeyer MC, Benjet C, Bromet EJ, Bruffaerts R, Caldas-de-Almeida JM, de Girolamo G, de Graaf R, Florescu SE, Gureje O, Haro JM, Hinkov HR, Horiguchi I, Hu C, Karam AN, Kovess-Masféty V, Lee S, Murphy SD, Nizamie SH, Posada-Villa J, Williams DR, Kessler RC. Br. J. Psychiatry 2012; 200(4): 290-299.

Affiliation

Division of General Pediatrics, Children's Hospital Boston, Harvard Medical School, 300 Longwood Ave, Boston, MA 02115, USA. Katie.McLaughlin@childrens.harvard.edu

Copyright

(Copyright © 2012, Royal College of Psychiatry)

DOI

10.1192/bjp.bp.111.101253

PMID

22403085

PMCID

PMC3317036

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Associations between specific parent and offspring mental disorders are likely to have been overestimated in studies that have failed to control for parent comorbidity. AIMS: To examine the associations of parent with respondent disorders. METHOD: Data come from the World Health Organization (WHO) World Mental Health Surveys (n = 51 507). Respondent disorders were assessed with the Composite International Diagnostic Interview and parent disorders with informant-based Family History Research Diagnostic Criteria interviews. RESULTS: Although virtually all parent disorders examined (major depressive, generalised anxiety, panic, substance and antisocial behaviour disorders and suicidality) were significantly associated with offspring disorders in multivariate analyses, little specificity was found. Comorbid parent disorders had significant sub-additive associations with offspring disorders. Population-attributable risk proportions for parent disorders were 12.4% across all offspring disorders, generally higher in high- and upper-middle- than low-/lower-middle-income countries, and consistently higher for behaviour (11.0-19.9%) than other (7.1-14.0%) disorders. CONCLUSIONS: Parent psychopathology is a robust non-specific predictor associated with a substantial proportion of offspring disorders.

Language: en