Risk factors for parental psychopathology: a study in families with children or adolescents with psychopathology

Abstract

The parents of children with psychopathology are at increased risk for psychiatric symptoms. To investigate which parents are mostly at risk, we assessed in a clinical sample of families with children with psychopathology, whether parental symptom scores can be predicted by offspring psychiatric diagnoses and other child, parent and family characteristics. Parental depressive, anxiety, avoidant personality, attention-deficit/hyperactivity (ADHD), and antisocial personality symptoms were measured with the Adult Self Report in 1805 mothers and 1361 fathers of 1866 children with a psychiatric diagnosis as assessed in a child and adolescent psychiatric outpatient clinic. In a multivariate model, including all parental symptom scores as outcome variables, all offspring psychiatric diagnoses, offspring comorbidity and age, parental age, parental educational attainment, employment, and relationship status were simultaneously tested as predictors. Both 35.7% of mothers and 32.8% of fathers scored (sub)clinical for at least one symptom domain, mainly depressive symptoms, ADHD symptoms or, only in fathers, avoidant personality symptoms. Parental psychiatric symptoms were predicted by unemployment. Parental depressive and ADHD symptoms were further predicted by offspring depression and offspring ADHD, respectively, as well as by not living together with the other parent. Finally, parental avoidant personality symptoms were also predicted by offspring autism spectrum disorders. In families with children referred to child and adolescent psychiatric outpatient clinics, parental symptom scores are associated with adverse circumstances and with similar psychopathology in their offspring. This signifies, without implying causality, that some families are particularly vulnerable, with multiple family members affected and living in adverse circumstances.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (10.1007/s00787-018-1156-6) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Revisiting parent–child interactions in early childhood as relevant factor in the development of ADHD

“…Although mechanisms explaining the high frequency of depressive symptoms in these young children were not investigated, the authors notice that caregiver's mental health difficulties may be a relevant factor. This would indeed be in line with the existing literature, showing that (1) parents of children with ADHD often experience mental health problems themselves (including ADHD and depression) [1,2] (2) depression in parents increases the development of depressive symptoms in (very) young children amongst other factors through influencing parenting practices [3,4], and (3) treatment of parental depression and/or parent-child interaction therapy may reduce depression in young children [5]. Indirectly these findings support the relevance of including the early parent-child interaction as relevant domain in the search for early risk pathways towards the development of ADHD and its comorbidities.…”

Risk factors underlying depressive symptoms among parents/primary care providers of kids with autism spectrum disorder: A study from Muscat, Oman

“…Overall, due to heterogeneity of the instruments used to measure depressive symptoms, there is a wide variability in the rate of depressive symptoms . However, it has been well‐established that the caregivers of children with ASD tend to have a higher rate of depressive symptoms compared to normally developing children . Furthermore, the rate of depression among caregivers appears to outstrip the rate noted among the general population …”

“…[15][16][17] However, it has been well-established that the caregivers of children with ASD tend to have a higher rate of depressive symptoms compared to normally developing children. 18 Furthermore, the rate of depression among caregivers appears to outstrip the rate noted among the general population. 19 Benson and Karlof 13 have defined what they call "stress proliferation" to describe this phenomenon.…”

Are childhood and adult ADHD the same entities?

“…This is not readily reconcilable with numerous reports of a familial association of offspring ADHD with parental ADHD or ADHD symptoms (e.g. Wesseldijk et al [5] epub ahead of print), which have even been extended to the therapeutic level by addressing the treatment of affected mothers (Häge et al [6] epub ahead of print).…”