Browsing by Subject "developmental course"

Depression has a tendency to be transmitted from parents to their children. Both environmental and genetic factors contribute to the development of depressive symptoms, but the mechanisms in the intergenerational transmission of depression are still largely unknown. It has been suggested that one possible pathway in the intergenerational transmission of depression risk might be interplay between genetic and environmental factors, so that the individual's genetic makeup might alter his/her sensitivity to the effects of adverse environmental circumstances. Because several psychiatric disorders have been indicated to stem partially from the same genetic background, it is possible that in addition to parental depression, other parental mental disorders might also increase the risk of depression in offspring. In the present study, I studied whether parental history of psychopathology is associated with offspring depression and whether stressful life events have different consequences on the children with and without parental history of psychiatric disorders. In the present study, the data from the ongoing prospective study of Young Finns was used (n=2428). At the baseline in 1980, the participants(offspring) were derived from six different age cohorts. The participants' age range was 3-18 years at that time. Parental history of psychopathology was assessed in 1980 and 1983, and stressful life events (move, school change, parental death, parental divorce) were assessed in 1980. Offspring depressive symptoms were measured in 1992, 1997, 2001, 2007 and 2012 using Beck Depression Inventory. The association between parental psychopathology and offspring depression and the effect of stressful life events on this relationship was examined using multilevel regression modeling. This made it possible to examine the developmental trajectories of offspring depression. Parental history of psychopathology was associated with higher depression level in offspring, but it had no effect on the age-related trajectories of offspring depression. Parental psychopathology seemed to create a long-term risk of offspring depression but it did not expose the children to adverse developmental course of depressive symptoms. The children with parental history of psychopathology were not more sensitive to stressful life events compared with the children whose parents had not suffered from psychiatric disorders. However, it has to be taken into account that single stressful experiences may not represent a stressful environment very well.