Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Middeldorp, Christel M., MD, PhD
• Nivard, Michel G., PhD
• Wesseldijk, Laura W., MSc
• StPourcain, Beate, PhD
• Dieleman, Gwen C., MD
• Munafo, Marcus R., PhD
• Boomsma, Dorret I., PhD

Titel

2.4 The Course of Symptoms of Anxiety and Depression: The Role of Genetic Factors, Comorbidity, and the Association With Parental Symptoms

Ist Teil von

• Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 2016-10, Vol.55 (10), p.S260-S261

Ort / Verlag

Baltimore: Elsevier Inc

Erscheinungsjahr

2016

Quelle

Applied Social Sciences Index & Abstracts (ASSIA)

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• Objectives: It is well established that symptoms of anxiety and depression are 40 to 50 percent heritable, are stable from childhood to adolescence, and are often comorbid with other factors in psychopathology. My presentation will focus on the following: 1) how genetic factors influence stability; 2) how comorbid externalizing symptoms are associated with the course of internalizing symptoms; and 3) how internalizing symptoms in families with children with psychopathology are associated with internalizing and externalizing symptoms in other family members. Methods: Longitudinal data from 49,524 twins from the Netherlands Twin Register were analyzed to explore the stability over time. Trajectory analyses were performed with data from over 7,000 individuals participating in the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (United Kingdom). Data collected in families evaluated at child and adolescent psychiatric outpatient clinics in the Netherlands were analyzed to estimated spousal and parent-offspring correlations in psychopathology. Results: The twin analyses revealed that genetic factors explain most of the stability. Trajectory analyses showed that comorbidity between internalizing and externalizing psychopathology also remains constant from childhood into adolescence. In the clinical sample group, internalizing symptoms in one spouse were related to internalizing and externalizing symptoms in the other spouse. A multivariate analysis of parent-offspring data showed that maternal anxiety was related to offspring internalizing and externalizing psychopathology. In fathers, internalizing psychopathology was only associated with offspring-internalizing psychopathology. Conclusions: Genetic factors and comorbidity can play a role in persisting symptoms of anxiety and depression. Genetic stability is also implicated from the family data collected at the child and adolescent psychiatric outpatient clinic, as parents and their offspring showed various significant correlations for internalizing psychopathology.