Pathways from parental mental disorders to offspring's work disability due to depressive or anxiety disorders in early adulthood-The 1987 Finnish Birth Cohort

Social inequality in the association between life transitions into adulthood and depressed mood: a 27-year longitudinal study

Background

Few studies have considered the life-course development of depressive symptoms in relation to life transitions in early-adulthood and whether these might affect depressive trajectories differently depending on specific indicators of parental socioeconomic status (SES). In the present work, we explore these questions using the adolescent pathway model as a guiding framework to test socially differential exposure, tracking and vulnerability of the effects of life transitions on depressed mood across different socioeconomic backgrounds.

Methods

Latent growth modeling was used to estimate the associations between indicators of parental SES (parental education and household income) and depressed mood from age 13 to 40 with life transitions (leaving the parental home, leaving the educational system, beginning cohabitation, attaining employment) as pathways between the two. Our analyses were based on a 27-year longitudinal dataset (n = 1242) of a Norwegian cohort with 10 time points in total. To make socioeconomic comparisons, three groups (low, mid, and high) were made for parental education and income respectively.

Results

Depressed mood decreased from age 13 to 40. The low and high parental education groups showed a stable difference in depressed mood during early adolescence, which decreased in young adulthood and then increased slightly in mid-adulthood. The low household income group showed higher depressed mood across young adulthood compared to the medium and higher household income groups. For life transitions, leaving the parental home and beginning cohabitation was associated with an added downturn of the trajectory of depressed mood when adjusting for other transitions. However, adolescents with high parental education showed a relatively stronger decrease in depressed mood when leaving the parental home. Similarly, adolescents with a high household income showed a relatively stronger decrease in depressed mood when leaving the educational system.

Conclusions

Depressed mood decreased over time and developed differently depending on parental education and household income. Life transitions were generally associated with reductions in depressed mood across time, but lower SES youths were not found to be more socially vulnerable these effects.

Risk of parental psychiatric disorders among adolescents with major depressive disorder according to response to antidepressant treatment: does the type of antidepressant matter?

BACKGROUND

The genetic load for major depressive disorder (MDD) may be higher in people who develop MDD earlier in life. This study aimed to investigate whether the parents of adolescents with MDD were more likely to have MDD, bipolar disorder (BD), schizophrenic disorder (SZ), alcohol use disorder, or substance use disorder than the parents of adolescents without MDD. We also examined whether the response to antidepressant treatment predicted the likelihood of parental psychiatric disorders.

METHODS

In all, 1,758 adolescents aged 12-19 years with antidepressant-resistant depression, 7,032 (1:4) age-/sex-matched adolescents with antidepressant-responsive depression and 7,032 (1:4) age-/sex-matched controls were included. Parental psychiatric disorders of individuals enrolled were assessed.

RESULTS

The parents of the adolescents with MDD were more likely to be diagnosed with MDD, BD, SZ, alcohol use disorder, or substance use disorder than the parents of the control group. The parents of adolescents who were antidepressant resistant and the mothers of adolescents who were either treatment resistant or treatment responsive were more likely to be diagnosed with a psychiatric disorder.

DISCUSSION

Our study demonstrated that parents of adolescents with MDD may be more likely to be diagnosed with MDD, BD, SZ, alcohol use disorder, or substance use disorder than parents of adolescents without MDD, suggesting the within-disorder transmission and cross-disorder transmission of these psychiatric disorders. Furthermore, the parent's sex and the response to antidepressant treatment may affect the within-disorder transmission of MDD.

Preventive interventions for children and adolescents of parents with mental illness: A systematic review

BACKGROUND

Children of parents with mental disorders have a relatively high risk of developing a mental illness or behavioural disorder.

OBJECTIVE

The aim of this systematic review was to evaluate the efficacy of preventive psychotherapeutic interventions in children of parents with mental illness. In particular, the development of mental illness and/or psychological symptomatology in this population was assessed.

METHOD

This qualitative systematic review looked at interventions targeting children aged 4-18 years without a diagnosed mental disorder, alone or with their families, with a parent with a diagnosed mental disorder. The protocol was pre-registered in Open Science Framework. A total of 1255 references were retrieved from MEDLINE, PsychArticles, PsycINFO, Springer Link, Science Direct, Scopus and WOS databases, and 12 references from grey literature. This search was replicated by an external reviewer.

RESULTS

Fifteen studies involving 1941 children and 1328 parents were included. Interventions were based on cognitive-behavioural and/or psychoeducational components, including six randomized controlled trials. Internalizing symptomatology was assessed in 80% of the studies, externalizing and prosocial behaviour in 47%, and coping style in 33%. Only two studies measured the future risk of developing a mental disorder (ORs of 2.37 and 6.6). There was variability in the format of the intervention (group; family) as well as in the type of intervention and its duration (from one session to 12 sessions).

CONCLUSIONS

Interventions for children of parents with mental disorder were clinically and statistically significant, especially in preventing internalizing symptomatology at one-year follow-up, with effect sizes ranging from d = -0.28 to 0.57 (95% CI).

Associations between low parental education, childhood adversities and sickness absence in midlife public sector employees

AIMS

Parental education and childhood adversities are associated with long-term work disability but their contribution to sickness absence is largely unknown. We aimed to examine the associations between parental education, childhood adversities and self-certified and medically-certified sickness absence among midlife employees.

METHODS

The Helsinki Health Study baseline survey data (2000-2002) of 40-to-60-year-old municipal employees were linked with sickness absence data from the employer's register. Self-certified (1-3 days) and medically-certified (>3 days) sickness absence spells were followed from 2003 until the end of 2008. The study included 5728 employees. The analyses were made by Poisson regression and the results are presented as rate ratios (RRs) and their 95% confidence intervals (CIs).

RESULTS

Low maternal education was associated with self-certified sickness absence (RR 1.32, 95% CI 1.13-1.55) among women only whereas both low maternal (1.49, 1.26-1.77) and low paternal education (1.48, 1.32-1.67) were associated with medically-certified sickness absence. Adjustment for own occupational class mainly abolished these associations. Having experienced any childhood adversity was associated with self-certified (1.18, 1.12-1.25) and medically-certified (1.22, 1.15-1.30) sickness absence. In addition, childhood economic difficulties, childhood illness, parental divorce, parental mental illness, parental alcohol problems and bullying were each associated both with self-certified and with medically-certified sickness absence. The associations mainly remained after adjustments for occupational class, marital status, working condition, body mass index and health behaviours.

CONCLUSIONS

Low parental education and childhood adversities contributed to midlife sickness absence. Promoting well-being of families with children might help sustain adult work ability and prevent sickness absence still in midlife.

Co-occurrence of depressive, anxiety, and somatic symptoms: trajectories from adolescence to midlife using group-based joint trajectory analysis

BACKGROUND

Co-occurrence of mental and somatic symptoms is common, and recent longitudinal studies have identified single trajectories of these symptoms, but it is poorly known whether the symptom trajectories can also co-occur and change across the lifespan. We aimed to examine co-occurring symptoms and their joint trajectories from adolescence to midlife.

METHODS

Longitudinal data were derived from Northern Sweden, where 506 girls and 577 boys aged 16 years participated at baseline in 1981 (99.7% of those initially invited), and have been followed up in four waves until the age of 43. Survey data were collected about depressive, anxiety, and somatic symptoms. Potential joint development of this three-component symptom set was examined with multiple response trajectory analysis, a method that has not been previously used to study co-occurrence of these symptoms.

RESULTS

We identified a five trajectory solution as the best: "very low" (19%), "low" (31%), "high" (22%), "late sharply increasing" (16%) and a "very high increasing" (12%). In the "late sharply increasing" and "very high increasing" groups the scores tended to increase with age, while in the other groups the levels were more stable. Overall, the results indicated that depressive, anxiety, and somatic symptoms co-exist from adolescence to midlife.

CONCLUSIONS

The multiple response trajectory analysis confirmed high stability in the co-occurrence of depressive, anxiety, and somatic symptoms from adolescence to midlife. Clinicians should consider these findings to detect symptoms in their earliest phase in order to prevent the development of co-occurring high levels of symptoms.

Determinants of long-term unemployment in early adulthood: A Finnish birth cohort study

Cumulative contributions of social and health-related determinants to long-term unemployment during early working life among young adults are poorly understood. Therefore, we used four cumulative indices of both parental and own social and health-related determinants of such unemployment among a cohort which comprised a complete census of children born in Finland in 1987. The cohort participants were registered in the Medical Birth Register, and they were followed-up through 2015 (N = 46 521). We calculated predicted probabilities for long-term unemployment (> 12 months) when participants were 25–28 years. Moreover, we examined whether the associations differed by unemployment at the municipal level.

During the follow-up, 4.5% of women and 7.1% of men experienced long-term unemployment. All cumulative indices of parental and own social and health-related determinants predicted the probability of long-term unemployment. The greatest probabilities were observed for own social determinants, both in municipalities with high and low unemployment although the probabilities were higher in the high-unemployment municipalities. Of the individual determinants, poor school performance showed the strongest association with long-term unemployment among women (OR 6.65, 95% CI 5.21–8.55) and men (OR 3.70, 95% CI 2.96–4.67), after adjusting for other own social determinants. The results highlight the importance of life course social equality in the prevention of long-term unemployment in early adulthood.

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Parental and own social and health-related factors predict long-term unemployment.

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Particularly poor school performance increases the odds for long-term unemployment.

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With high municipal unemployment rates, effects of social disadvantage are emphasized.

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Those better off have a lower risk of unemployment even in high unemployment areas.