Relationship of child psychopathology to parental alcoholism and antisocial personality disorder.

OBJECTIVE

To evaluate the contributions of familial factors, including parental diagnoses of alcoholism and/or antisocial personality disorder (ASPD), to the risk of developing various child psychiatric diagnoses.

METHOD: Four hundred sixty-three children and their biological parents were interviewed with adult and child versions of the Semi-Structured Assessment for the Genetics of Alcoholism. Demographic and psychiatric data were compared across 3 groups of children on the basis of the presence of parental alcoholism and ASPD (no other parental diagnoses were examined). Generalized estimating equations analyses allowed the inclusion of multiple children from each family in the analyses.

RESULTS

Among offspring, parental alcoholism was associated with increased risks for attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, conduct disorder (CD), and overanxious disorder. Parental alcoholism plus ASPD was associated with increased risk for oppositional defiant disorder. Dysfunctional parenting style was associated with increased risks for CD, alcohol abuse, and marijuana abuse. Low family socioeconomic status was associated with increased risk for CD.

CONCLUSIONS

Parental diagnoses of alcoholism and ASPD were associated with increased risks for a variety of childhood psychiatric disorders, and dysfunctional parenting style was associated with the diagnoses of CD, alcohol abuse, and marijuana abuse.