Children of patients with substance use disorders (SUD) are at high risk for mental disorders. The effects of specific SUD in both parents on the risk of psychopathology in offspring have hardly been studied.

To gain a better understanding of the morbid risk of these children.

To assess, 1) the associations between alcohol dependence (AD) or heroin dependence (HD) in patients and psychopathology in their children; 2) the morbid risk conferred by having a second parent with SUD.

The sample included 276 children aged from 6 to 17.9 years (mean age = 11.5): 23 children of 15 patients with HD, 101 offspring of 50 patients with AD, 152 children of 81 orthopedic patients (controls) and 158 biological co-parents of the children. Subjects were interviewed by psychologists blind to patient diagnoses, using a semi-structured diagnostic interview.

1) Children of HD or AD patients had largely elevated rates of recurrent major depressive disorder and children of HD patients were also at an increased risk for ADHD and SUD; 2) There were interactions between drug disorders and alcohol disorders in both parents to increase the risk of early SUD in offspring.

The early manifestations of mental disorders in children of SUD patients emphasize the need for prompt identification and treatment of these disorders. The involvement of co-parental disorders in the development of offspring psychopathology highlights the need to pay clinical attention not only to the patient, but also to the co-parent in order to optimize prevention in offspring.