Impact of psychiatric disturbance on identifying psychiatric disorder in relatives: study of mothers and daughters

Coelho, H.F., Cooper, P.J. and Murray, L. (2006) Impact of psychiatric disturbance on identifying psychiatric disorder in relatives: study of mothers and daughters. British Journal of Psychiatry, 188 (3). pp. 288-289. ISSN 0007-1250 doi: 10.1192/bjp.bp.105.010447

Abstract/Summary

Previous studies have suggested that collecting psychiatric data on relatives in family studies by asking probands to provide information on them leads to a bias in estimates of morbidity risk, because probands' accounts are influenced by their own psychiatric histories. We investigated this in a UK sample and found that daughters' anxiety disorder histories did not influence their reports of anxiety disorder in mothers, but their history of mood disorder/alcohol dependence made them more sensitive in predicting mood disorder/alcohol dependence in mothers.