BACKGROUND: An excess of both depression and undesirable life events in first-degree relatives of probands with depression as compared with controls has been reported. This association may have reflected a familial factor in common. AIMS: To examine the familiality of life events and depression and whether there may be a common familial factor influencing vulnerability to depression and the experiencing of life events. METHOD: In a sib-pair design, 108 probands with depression and their siblings were compared with 105 healthy controls and their siblings for psychopathology and life events. RESULTS: The lifetime relative risk of depressive disorder in the siblings of depressed subjects as compared with siblings of controls was 9.74, although these groups did not differ in the life events measures. Several categories of events showed significant sibling correlations, but this was due to the same event affecting both members of the pair. CONCLUSIONS: Although depressive disorder was strongly familial, the familial effects on life events were largely explained by shared experiences. There was no evidence for a common factor influencing both depression and life events.
BACKGROUND: An excess of both depression and undesirable life events in first-degree relatives of probands with depression as compared with controls has been reported. This association may have reflected a familial factor in common. AIMS: To examine the familiality of life events and depression and whether there may be a common familial factor influencing vulnerability to depression and the experiencing of life events. METHOD: In a sib-pair design, 108 probands with depression and their siblings were compared with 105 healthy controls and their siblings for psychopathology and life events. RESULTS: The lifetime relative risk of depressive disorder in the siblings of depressed subjects as compared with siblings of controls was 9.74, although these groups did not differ in the life events measures. Several categories of events showed significant sibling correlations, but this was due to the same event affecting both members of the pair. CONCLUSIONS: Although depressive disorder was strongly familial, the familial effects on life events were largely explained by shared experiences. There was no evidence for a common factor influencing both depression and life events.
Authors: Karin Hek; Ayse Demirkan; Jari Lahti; Antonio Terracciano; Alexander Teumer; Cornelia M van Duijn; Hans J Grabe; Lenore J Launer; Kathryn L Lunetta; Thomas H Mosley; Anne B Newman; Henning Tiemeier; Joanne Murabito; Marilyn C Cornelis; Najaf Amin; Erin Bakshis; Jens Baumert; Jingzhong Ding; Yongmei Liu; Kristin Marciante; Osorio Meirelles; Michael A Nalls; Yan V Sun; Nicole Vogelzangs; Lei Yu; Stefania Bandinelli; Emelia J Benjamin; David A Bennett; Dorret Boomsma; Alessandra Cannas; Laura H Coker; Eco de Geus; Philip L De Jager; Ana V Diez-Roux; Shaun Purcell; Frank B Hu; Eric B Rimma; David J Hunter; Majken K Jensen; Gary Curhan; Kenneth Rice; Alan D Penman; Jerome I Rotter; Nona Sotoodehnia; Rebecca Emeny; Johan G Eriksson; Denis A Evans; Luigi Ferrucci; Myriam Fornage; Vilmundur Gudnason; Albert Hofman; Thomas Illig; Sharon Kardia; Margaret Kelly-Hayes; Karestan Koenen; Peter Kraft; Maris Kuningas; Joseph M Massaro; David Melzer; Antonella Mulas; Cornelis L Mulder; Anna Murray; Ben A Oostra; Aarno Palotie; Brenda Penninx; Astrid Petersmann; Luke C Pilling; Bruce Psaty; Rajesh Rawal; Eric M Reiman; Andrea Schulz; Joshua M Shulman; Andrew B Singleton; Albert V Smith; Angelina R Sutin; André G Uitterlinden; Henry Völzke; Elisabeth Widen; Kristine Yaffe; Alan B Zonderman; Francesco Cucca; Tamara Harris; Karl-Heinz Ladwig; David J Llewellyn; Katri Räikkönen; Toshiko Tanaka Journal: Biol Psychiatry Date: 2013-01-03 Impact factor: 13.382
Authors: Harriet A Ball; Sisira H Siribaddana; Athula Sumathipala; Yulia Kovas; Nick Glozier; Peter McGuffin; Matthew Hotopf Journal: BMC Psychiatry Date: 2010-02-02 Impact factor: 3.630