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Updated: Jan 19, 2026
Psychosis: Pathophysiology of Schizophrenia and Other Psychotic Disorders
Basic symptoms in offspring of parents with mood and psychotic disorders
Alyson Zwicker1, Lynn E MacKenzie2, Vladislav Drobinin3
1Nova Scotia Health Authority; and Department of Pathology, Dalhousie University, Canada.
Insights
Children with basic symptoms, perceived disturbances in thought and perception, show increased familial risk for psychopathology. This risk is linked to parental mental illness severity, not just psychotic disorders.
Area of Science:
- Psychiatry
- Genetics
- Developmental Psychology
Background:
- Basic symptoms, subjective disturbances in thought and perception, predict psychotic disorders.
- The link between basic symptoms and familial history of diverse severe mental illnesses remains understudied.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the association between parental history of mood and psychotic disorders and the presence of basic symptoms in offspring.
- To determine if parental mental illness severity influences basic symptom manifestation in children.
Main Methods:
- Utilized the Schizophrenia Proneness Instrument - Child and Youth Version to assess basic symptoms in 332 youth (aged 8-26).
- Compared offspring from control families, families with non-severe mood disorders, and families with severe mood and psychotic disorders.
- Employed mixed-effects linear regression models to analyze the relationship between parental mental illness and offspring basic symptoms.
Main Results:
- Offspring with a parent diagnosed with severe mood and psychotic disorders exhibited significantly higher basic symptom scores.
- Offspring of parents with severe illness featuring psychotic features also showed elevated basic symptom scores.
- Offspring of parents with non-severe mood disorders had intermediate basic symptom levels, not statistically different from controls.
Conclusions:
- Basic symptoms in childhood serve as a marker for familial psychopathology risk.
- The risk associated with basic symptoms is correlated with the severity of parental mental illness.
- Basic symptoms are not exclusive to familial risk for psychotic disorders but indicate broader psychopathology risk.
Background:
Basic symptoms, defined as subjectively perceived disturbances in thought, perception and other essential mental processes, have been established as a predictor of psychotic disorders. However, the relationship between basic symptoms and family history of a transdiagnostic range of severe mental illness, including major depressive disorder, bipolar disorder and schizophrenia, has not been examined.
Aims:
We sought to test whether non-severe mood disorders and severe mood and psychotic disorders in parents is associated with increased basic symptoms in their biological offspring.
Method:
We measured basic symptoms using the Schizophrenia Proneness Instrument - Child and Youth Version in 332 youth aged 8-26 years, including 93 offspring of control parents, 92 offspring of a parent with non-severe mood disorders, and 147 offspring of a parent with severe mood and psychotic disorders. We tested the relationships between parent mental illness and offspring basic symptoms in mixed-effects linear regression models.
Results:
Offspring of a parent with severe mood and psychotic disorders (B = 0.69, 95% CI 0.22-1.16, P = 0.004) or illness with psychotic features (B = 0.68, 95% CI 0.09-1.27, P = 0.023) had significantly higher basic symptom scores than control offspring. Offspring of a parent with non-severe mood disorders reported intermediate levels of basic symptoms, that did not significantly differ from control offspring.
Conclusions:
Basic symptoms during childhood are a marker of familial risk of psychopathology that is related to severity and is not specific to psychotic illness.
Declaration Of Interest:
None.
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