Children with family history more than twice as likely to develop mood disorders, study finds
WEDNESDAY, Jan. 12 (HealthDayNews) -- Depression intensifies from one generation to the next, says a study in the January issue of the Archives of General Psychiatry.
The study found that nearly 60 percent of children whose parents and grandparents suffered depression experienced anxiety disorders during their prepubescent years and developed depression as they became adolescents.
That's more than double the number of children (about 28 percent) with no family history of depression who developed anxiety and depression.
Researchers from Columbia University Medical Center (CUMC) and the New York State Psychiatric Institute (NYSPI) began studying 47 first-generation family members in 1982 and interviewed 86 of their children as they grew into adulthood. They then collected data from 161 members of the third generation, average age 12.
"We have shown that the risk of depression is carried through several generations, and that it intensifies as more generations are affected," study author Myrna Weissman, a professor of psychiatry and epidemiology at CUMC and chief of the department of clinical & genetic epidemiology at NYSPI, said in a prepared statement.
"Children with a two-generation family history of depression develop anxiety disorders earlier than other children, and tend to experience more impairment," she said.
"Children of parents and grandparents with depression are at extremely high risk for mood and anxiety disorders even when they're very young. They should be considered for treatment if they develop anxiety disorders, or at least monitored very closely," Weissman said.
SOURCE: Columbia University, news release, January 2005
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