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Researchers observe environmental link between parental, child anxiety
The association between parental and offspring anxiety is significantly environmental and independent of genetic confounds, according to study findings in the American Journal of Psychiatry.
“One of the most robust features of anxiety disorders is that they run in families. This association has been widely explored, and there is evidence for a number of contributing mechanisms,” study researcher Thalia C. Eley, PhD, of King’s College London, and colleagues wrote. “However, these studies do not take into account another possibility, whereby genes that affect parent anxiety and child/adolescent anxiety also influence parenting, thus leading to a confounding of genetic and environmental influences.”
Thalia C. Eley
Eley and colleagues identified 387 monozygotic twin families and 489 dizygotic twin families from the Twin and Offspring Study of Sweden and assessed anxiety symptoms, personalities and neuroticism among parents and children. At the time of data collection, twins had a mean age of 44.8 years and their children had a mean age of 15.7 years.
There was modest evidence of environmental transmission of anxiety and neuroticism, as there was a more significant parents and offspring vs. avuncular correlation among monozygotic and dizygotic twin families.
Analysis did not indicate a significant association between genetics and anxiety or neuroticism.
“These analyses provide support for the direct, environmentally mediated transmission of anxiety from parents to their adolescent offspring over and above any genetic confounding of this association,” Eley and colleagues wrote. “It is noteworthy that the analyses do not provide support for genetic transmission being a significant influence, given the assumptions of our model that the same genetic factors influence both adolescent and adult anxiety.” – by Amanda Oldt
Disclosure: The researchers report no relevant financial disclosures.