Family Genetic-Risk Profiles Associated With Divorce

Abstract

We used Swedish national-register data ( N = 2,828,777) to examine divorce and its associated patterns of family genetic-risk scores (FGRSs; personalized measures of genetic risk inferred from diagnoses in relatives) across 10 psychiatric disorders: major depression, anxiety disorders, obsessive compulsive disorder, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, anorexia nervosa, alcohol use disorder, drug use disorder, attention-deficit/hyperactive disorder, and autism spectrum disorder. Individuals who divorced had elevated FGRSs across all disorders compared with individuals who were stably married or never married. FGRSs for all disorders were higher among divorced females compared with divorced males and among individuals who did not go on to have a stable second marriage compared with individuals who had a stable second marriage and increased as the cumulative number of divorces increased. In summary, genetic predispositions for psychiatric disorders are associated with the propensity to divorce and with several differences as a function of sex, remarriage, and the cumulative number of divorce transitions.