Exploring protective and risk factors in the home environment in high-risk families – results from the Danish High Risk and Resilience Study—VIA 7

Abstract

Background Exposure to inadequate home environment may put the healthy development of familial high-risk children at risk. This study aimed to investigate associations between risk factors and an adequate home environment of children having a parent diagnosed with schizophrenia or bipolar disorder. Methods From a cohort of 522 children, data from 463 7-year-old children was included. Of these 172 children had familial risk for schizophrenia, 109 children had familial risk for bipolar disorder, and 190 were population-based controls. As part of a comprehensive battery, all participants were assessed with the Middle Childhood-Home Observation for Measurement of the Environment Inventory (MC-HOME Inventory) measuring the quality of the home environment. Results When analyzing all families together, we found that having a parent diagnosed with schizophrenia would have a negative impact on the home environment (ß = -1.08; 95% CI (-2.16;-0.01); p = 0.05), while familial risk for bipolar disorder did not show significant predictive value. Being a single caregiver and child having experienced severe life events from ages 4 to 7 showed significant negative impact, while child having a mental illness diagnosis did not. Being a female caregiver, good social functioning of the caregiver, high child IQ and not being a single caregiver were found to predict positive values for the home environment. We found similar results when analyzing caregivers with and without a diagnosis separately. Conclusions Knowledge of what predicts good home environment should be used to inform development of early interventions for families at risk.

Editorial: Psychotic experiences, social cognition and pragmatic communication in the psychosis continuum

“…Finally, the RT has also shown what is currently lacking and where future efforts might be directed: longitudinal design are essential to track over time the relationships between PE and deficits in social cognition and pragmatic communication and the onset of psychosis. We also need prospective studies that can track the development of PE since infancy and childhood and identify early signs of PE and psychosis and their association with clinical and psychosocial factors (Fried et al, 2022 ; Thorup et al, 2022 ).…”

Early Childhood Stimulating Environment Predicts Later Childhood Resilience in an Indian Longitudinal Birth Cohort Study

“…A composite tool including factors such as (1) access to improved Water and sanitation, (2) Assets, (3) Maternal education and (4) total household Income (WAMI) was utilized to analyze socio-economic status (SES) at 2 years of age in the MAL-ED cohort [ 32 ]. The final score from all the 4 variables were transformed into a standardized score (0–1).…”

Autism in gifted youth is associated with low processing speed and high verbal ability

“…The debate about whether giftedness (i.e., extremely high intelligence) is a protective or risk factor for neuropsychiatric disorders is nearly as old as the field of psychiatry itself [1][2][3]. While some studies have reported a potential association for high ability with neurodevelopmental and psychiatric disorders [4,5], and, in particular, with genetic risk for those disorders [6][7][8][9], the prevalent notion in the field is that higher IQ is a protective factor [3,10]. Both possibilities -extreme cognitive ability either being a protective or a predisposing factor -could hint at distinct underlying neurobiological mechanisms.…”