Objective: Abundant literature has focused on the influence of parental mood disorders on mental health in offspring. However, most studies have shown the familial transmission of these disorders only from school-age onwards and, to our knowledge, only two high-risk studies have reported on psychopathology in very young children. However, these studies used parental reports of child psychopathology. Our first objective was to define the validity of an assessment approach used directly with very young children named the Dominic interview by examining the concordance of diagnoses according to the Dominic and to the Kiddie Schedule for Affective Disorders and Schizophrenia – Epidemiologic version (K-SADS-E) administered at age 7. The second objective of the present study was to determine whether psychopathology in 4 year olds, assessed using the Dominic, and 7 year olds, assessed using both approaches, was associated with parental mental health.
Methods: A total of 64 offspring aged 4 years of 54 probands (n=15 children of bipolar probands, n=14 of depressed probands, n=35 controls) were directly interviewed using the Dominic; and 131 offspring aged 7 years of 94 probands (n=41 children of bipolar probands, n=40 of depressed probands, n=50 controls) were directly assessed using the K-SADS from which a part also responded to the Dominic at age 7. Offspring data at 4 years included children between the ages of 3.0 and 5.0 years [mean age: 4.5 years] and at 7 years, the sample for the K-SADS-E included children between the ages of 6.3 and 9.0 years [mean age: 7.8 years]. Each child was interviewed by an interviewer who was blind to the disease status of the parent.
Results: There was a moderate to good concordance of diagnoses according to the Dominic and to the K-SADS-E administrated at the age of 7 years. Prevalence rates of psychiatric disorders in offspring of parents with mood disorders at age 4 did not differ from those of controls. At age 7, offspring of depressed probands conferred a significantly higher risk of having separation anxiety disorder compared to those of controls, even when parental comorbid disorders were covaried.
Conclusion: The study extends previous findings by focusing on very young children. Findings suggested that parental depression confers a risk of separation anxiety disorder for 7 year-old children, which might represent an early developmental marker of emotional dysfunction. Aside from separation anxiety, psychopathology was not yet increased among these very young children compared to children of controls which might be explained by the fact of interviewing children directly instead of their parents and by the European origin of the sample.