The impact of parental mental illness across the full diagnostic spectrum on externalising and internalising vulnerabilities in young offspring

The intergenerational risk for mental illness is well established within diagnostic categories, but the risk is unlikely to respect diagnostic boundaries and may be reflected more broadly in early life vulnerabilities. We aimed to establish patterns of association between externalising and internali...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Psychological medicine 2018-10, Vol.48 (13), p.2257-2263
Main Authors: Dean, Kimberlie, Green, Melissa J., Laurens, Kristin R., Kariuki, Maina, Tzoumakis, Stacy, Sprague, Titia, Lenroot, Rhoshel, Carr, Vaughan J.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Behavioral Symptoms - epidemiology
Censuses
Child
Child Behavior
Child development
Child of Impaired Parents - statistics & numerical data
Child, Preschool
Childhood
Children
Children & youth
Cohort Studies
Criminal statistics
Early intervention
Families & family life
Female
First year
High risk
Humans
Male
Medical diagnosis
Mental disorders
Mental Disorders - epidemiology
Mental health
Mental health care
Mothers
New South Wales - epidemiology
Original Articles
Parents & parenting
Population
Psychopathology
Schizophrenia
Vulnerability
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Summary:The intergenerational risk for mental illness is well established within diagnostic categories, but the risk is unlikely to respect diagnostic boundaries and may be reflected more broadly in early life vulnerabilities. We aimed to establish patterns of association between externalising and internalising vulnerabilities in early childhood and parental mental disorder across the full spectrum of diagnoses. A cohort of Australian children (n = 69 116) entering the first year of school in 2009 were assessed using the Australian Early Development Census, providing measures of externalising and internalising vulnerability. Parental psychiatric diagnostic status was determined utilising record-linkage to administrative health datasets. Parental mental illness, across diagnostic categories, was associated with all child externalising and internalising domains of vulnerability. There was little evidence to support interaction by parental or offspring sex. These findings have important implications for informing early identification and intervention strategies in high-risk offspring and for research into the causes of mental illness. There may be benefits to focusing less on diagnostic categories in both cases.
ISSN:0033-2917
1469-8978
DOI:10.1017/S0033291717003786