Gottesman et al 2010 on Genetic explanations

Background

past research shown, when one parent has psychological disorder, the risk of child having psychological disorder increases. However, only small samples have been used, lacking generalisability

Aims

• to use large sample to investigate likelihood of offspring being diagnosed with schizophrenia, bipolar or other disorder if one or both parents have it

• to see if the same genes underlie more than one disorder and whether both parents having it would increase the risk

Method design

secondary data from a database

sample

2,685,301 Danish children aged 10 plus, and their parents.

what were the four main groups of participants

1. couples who were both on psychiatric registry

2. couples where one partner was on the registry

3. neither parent had any psychological disorder

4. people with no data on a diagnosis

procedure

1. using civil registration researchers identified parent of each child

2. each child and parent checked to see if on psychiatric register

3. specific diagnosis was identified

4. data on each offspring was linked to parents psychiatric history so that likelihood of a diagnosis of a psychological disorder could be calculated

Results

1. If both parents had schizophrenia diagnosis, chance of offspring having it was 27.3%

2. If one parent had schizpphrenia and the other had no diagnosis, chance of offspring having it was 7%

3. There is variable age of onset

Conclusions

• if both parents have serious psychological disorder, this increases risk of child developing not just that psychological disorder, but others

• Having one parent with psychological disorder increases risk, but having both parents having one creates even greater risk

• research supports genetic explanation of psychological disorders as demonstrates increased chance of developing serious psychological disorders if direct relatives have that or another one