NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Having at least one parent with major depression increases a child's risk for depression as well as substance abuse and anxiety disorders in late adolescence and early adulthood, new study findings show. What's more, the child's depression is likely to be more severe than the parent's, a team of German researchers report.

"This study has once more demonstrated that offspring of depressed parents constitute an important high-risk group," write lead study author Dr. Roselind Lieb, of the Max Planck Institute of Psychiatry in Munich, Germany and colleagues.

"Specifically, the early detection of mental health problems in offspring of depressed parents seems to be crucial, as this would allow the treatment of early manifestation of mental problems before they cause clinical impairment," the authors add.

The study results are based on surveys of 2,427 German youth, aged 14 to 24 years, and their parents.

Forty-two percent of the mothers and 23% of the fathers were either diagnosed with major depression or experienced at least one depressive episode, the investigators report in the April issue of Archives of General Psychiatry. For one third of the study sample, only the mother had major depression, but for 16%, both parents were affected.

A follow-up survey, conducted 3.5 years after the initial survey, revealed that nearly one in five offspring had experienced at least one episode of major depression and about 4% had symptoms of lifetime dysthymia--a milder, chronic form of depression, Lieb and colleagues report. Those with at least one depressed parent had a roughly three-fold greater risk of depression than their peers with non-affected parents.

Further, children of depressed parents had an earlier onset of depressive disorders and more severe depression than children of nonaffected parents. They also reported having more depressive episodes, being more impaired in their social and leisure activities and seeking more treatment for depression than did their peers, study findings indicate.

What's more, in addition to a higher rate of depressive disorders, children of depressed parents also had higher rates of substance abuse and dependence disorders and anxiety disorders, such as obsessive-compulsive disorder, than did their peers with nondepressed parents, the investigators report. Those with one depressed parent were generally at similar risk for the various mental disorders to those with two depressed parents.

Overall, 43% of the youth reported having substance use disorders, including nicotine dependence and drug and alcohol abuse and dependence, and 35% reported having anxiety disorders, study findings indicate. Those with at least one depressed parent were reportedly 40% more likely to have a substance abuse disorder and 60% more likely to have an anxiety disorder than individuals with nondepressed parents.

"Major depression in parents increases the overall risk in offspring for onset of depressive and other mental disorders and influences patterns of the natural course of depression in the early stages of manifestation," the researchers conclude.

SOURCE: Archives of General Psychiatry 2002;59:365-374.

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