Mood and anxiety symptoms among 140 children from alcoholic and control families

Children of alcoholics have been reported to have elevated levels of internalizing symptoms, including anxiety and depression. However, many studies have not adequately controlled for the influence of independent (i.e. not substance-induced) parental mood or anxiety disorders and other factors. The present evaluations assess the relationships of the family histories of alcohol use disorders and independent mood and anxiety disorders to internalizing symptoms in children of alcoholic and nonalcoholic subjects.

A behavioral checklist and a structured interview were administered to the parents of 140 children aged 7-18 years. The fathers of these offspring had been recruited 15 years previously from a university population to participate in a prospective study of 453 men from alcoholic and nonalcoholic families.

While a higher score for one of four measures of internalizing symptoms in the children was found to relate to a higher density of alcoholic relatives, this pattern was more robust in children of parents with mood or anxiety disorders. In a hierarchical regression, the family history of alcohol use disorders did not add significantly to the prediction of any of the four internalizing scores in the children after considering the impact of a family history of independent mood and anxiety disorders.

The results indicate that internalizing symptoms in children of alcoholics were more strongly influenced by a positive family history of mood and anxiety disorders than the family history of alcohol use disorders.