On the Internet, people often ask, “What are the chances that a child with a depressed parent will be sick?” In the past, I have been using very old data to answer. Recently, I was reading the Chinese version of the American Journal of Psychiatry and happened to see a recent study, so I’ll use this to excerpt the relevant content as follows.
The researchers of the article followed 151 children of parents with or without depression for up to 20 years. The results showed that the group with depressed parents had about three times the risk of developing anxiety disorders, depression and substance dependence than the group with no parental illness, and they had more impairment in social functioning. The peak age of onset of depression is 15 to 20 years and is commonly seen in women. When starting to reach middle age, children of depressed patients have more physical illnesses and higher mortality rates. Yang Z., Department of Clinical Psychology, Changshu Mental Health Center
Reference: Myrna M. Weissman, Priya Wickramarantne, Yoko Nomura, Virginia Warner, Daniel Pilowsky, Helen Verdeli. Offspring of Depressed Parents: 20 Years Later. Am J Psychiatry 2006;163(6):1001-1008.
Chinese title: Children of Depressed Patients: 20 Years Later