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Parental mental disorders and offspring schizotypy in middle childhood: an intergenerational record linkage study

Kirstie O'Hare1, Kristin R Laurens1,2, Oliver Watkeys1

  • 1Discipline of Psychiatry and Mental Health, School of Clinical Medicine, University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia.

Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology
|March 13, 2023
PubMed

Insights

Parental mental disorders in childhood are linked to various schizotypy risk profiles, suggesting general psychopathology liability rather than specific genetic links to schizophrenia spectrum disorders.

Area of Science:

  • Child and Adolescent Psychiatry
  • Developmental Psychology
  • Genetics of Mental Disorders

Background:

  • Schizotypy, a personality construct related to schizophrenia, can manifest in childhood.
  • Understanding the familial influences on childhood schizotypy is crucial for early intervention.
  • Parental mental health is a significant environmental factor in child development.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To examine the association between distinct childhood schizotypy risk profiles and parental mental disorders.
  • To determine if specific schizotypy profiles are linked to particular parental diagnoses.

Main Methods:

  • Utilized data from 22,137 children in the New South Wales Child Development Study.
  • Derived schizotypy risk profiles (true, introverted, affective) in middle childhood.
  • Conducted multinomial logistic regression to analyze associations with maternal and paternal diagnoses of seven mental disorders.

Main Results:

  • All parental mental disorders were associated with all childhood schizotypy profiles.
  • Children with true schizotypy were over twice as likely to have a parent with any mental disorder (OR=2.27).
  • Affective (OR=1.54) and introverted (OR=1.39) schizotypy profiles also showed increased likelihood of parental mental disorder exposure.

Conclusions:

  • Childhood schizotypy risk profiles are not specifically linked to familial liability for schizophrenia-spectrum disorders.
  • Findings support a general liability model for psychopathology, rather than specific genetic pathways.
  • Parental mental health broadly impacts childhood schizotypy development.
Abstract

Keywords:
Familial riskMental illnessPsychosis latent profile analysisSchizophrenia-spectrum disorders

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