Context/behaviour
Mental illness can affect emotions, thoughts and behaviour
Schizophrenia causes disruptions in thinking, language, perception and hearing voices/seeing delusions
Bipolar disorder = episodes of mania and depression
Gottesman proposed that studying offspring of parents who are mentally ill may show that offspring also has it, supporting the hereditary/genetic basis for mental health disorders
Aim
To examine how vulnerable children with 2 mentally ill parents are to developing the illnesses themselves, specifically Bi-polar disorder and schizophrenia
Research method
National register-based study in Denmark = Danish psychiatric central register = large sample
Procedure
2.6 million p's who were born in Denmark and born later than 1968 with a link to parents in the civil registration system, 10 years or older
Those diagnosed with schizophrenia, bipolar or unipolar were taken from the Danish PCR, then for each couple, their offspring were checked for similar diagnoses, and cumulative incidences were calculated
Cumulated incidences also calculated in offspring with only 1 parents diagnosed
To create a base rate, from the general population comparison cumulative incidences were also calculated in offspring of mentally healthy parents
Calculations were also made for offspring who has 1 parent with bipolar disorder and the other parent with schizophrenia
Each diagnosis was made with the ICD-8 and ICD-10
Findings
Risk of schizophrenia in 270 offspring (196 couples) who were both diagnosed with schizophrenia = 27.3%
7% in 13.8k offspring of 8k couples with 1 parent diagnosed with schizophrenia
0.86% in 2.2 million offspring of 1 million couples with neither parent diagnosed
Risk of bipolar = 24.9% in 146 kids of 83 couples with bipolar
4.4% in 23k kids from 12k couples with 1 bipolar parent
0.48% in 2.2 million kids of 1 million couples where neither couple was admitted
Risk of schizophrenia + bipolar in kids of couples with 1 parent who had each = 15.6% schizophrenia and 11.7% Bipolar
Risk of mental illness with no parents having it = 1/7 offspring
Conclusions
Offspring of dual matings with psychosis = higher risk
Higher risk of offspring being admitted with the same thing as parent than offspring with just 1 parent or neither parent having a mental illness
Evaluation
Ethics- Antipsychotic drugs have been used by force to calm patients and this could be seen as a human rights abuse, they can also have side effects such as dizziness, sleepiness and weight gain
Long term use can damage the central nervous system which can be fatal