Childhood parental death and adult psychopathology.

Childhood parental death has frequently been linked with adult mental disorders--mostly depression. The authors found no association with psychiatric diagnosis among 72 inpatients who had experienced the death of a parent when they were children, compared with 460 other patients in the Chestnut Lodge Follow-Up Study. The patients with a childhood parental death did, however, have significantly greater family pathology and impaired social and heterosexual functioning. These results refute the view that childhood parental death is singularly casual of adult psychopathology but support its role in a multidetermining matrix of contributing factors.