Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-lj6df Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-05T04:29:21.810Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Family history and schizophrenia: characteristics of groups with and without positive family histories

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 July 2009

Eric Shur
Eric Shur*
Affiliation:
Maudsley and Bethiem Royal Hospitals, London
*
1Address for correspondence: Dr Eric Shur, The Maudsley Hospital, Denmark Hill, London SES 8AZ.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Synopsis

Social and demographic characteristics were examined retrospectively in a sample of 475 hospitalized schizophrenics to test the hypothesis that they can be meaningfully distinguished by the presence or abesence of psychiatric disorders in their relatives. Cases with a positive family history of psychiatric disorders (FHP cases) were significantly more likely to have been born in the United Kingdom and to have had mothers. Those who had relatives with psychiatric disorders other than schizophrenia were significantly more likely to have been diagnosed as schizo-affective. The findings are thought to reflect a constitutional trait in parents of FHP cases leading to delayed child bearing. They also support the ‘environmental stress’ theory of immigrant psychosis and the hypothesized genetic link between schizo-affective and affective disorders.

Type
Research Article
Information
Psychological Medicine , Volume 12 , Issue 3 , August 1982 , pp. 591 - 594
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1982

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Gottesman, I. I. & Shields, J. (1973). Genetic theorising and schizophrenia. British Journal of Psychiatry 122, 15–30.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hare, E. H. & Moran, P. A. P. (1979). Raised parental age in psychiatric patients: evidence for the constitutional hypothesis. British Journal of Psychiatry 134, 169–177.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kendell, R. E. (1968). The Classfication of Depressive Illness. Maudsley Monograph No. 18. Oxford University Press: London.Google Scholar
Kety, S. S., Rosenthal, D., Wender, P. H., Schulsinger, F. & Jacobsen, B. (1975). Genetic Research in Psychiatry, pp. 147–165. Johns Hopkins University Press: Baltimore.Google Scholar
Kinney, D. K. & Jacobsen, B. (1978). Environmental factors in schizophrenia: new adoption study evidence. In The Nature of Schizophrenia: New Approaches to Research and Treatment (ed. Wynne, L. C., Cromwell, R. L. and Matthysse, S.), pp.38–51. Wiley: New York.Google Scholar
McCabe, M. S., Fowler, R. C., Cadoret, R. J. & Winokur, G. (1971). Familial differences in schizophrenia with good and poor prognosis. Psychological Medicine 1, 326–332.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Mednick, S. A. (1970). Breakdown in individuals at high risk for schizophrenia: possible predispositional perinatal factors. Mental Hygiene 54, 50–63.Google Scholar
Mednick, S. A., Mura, E., Schulsinger, F. & Mednick, B. (1971). Perinatal conditions and infant development in children with schizophrenic parents. Social Biology 18, 103–113.Google ScholarPubMed
Murphy, H. B. M. (1973). Migration and the major mental disorders: a reappraisal. In Uprooting and After (ed. Zwingmann, C. and Pfister-Ammende, M.), pp. 204–220. Springer-Verlag: Berlin.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rosenthal, D. (1959). Some factors associated with concordance and discordance with respect to schizophrenia in monozygotic twins. Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease 129, 1–10.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Schulsinger, F., Mednick, S. A., Walker, E. F., Cudeck, R. & Moffitt, T. (1980). Biosocial implications growing from high risk research. Acta psychiatrica scandinavica 62, suppl. 285, 112–120.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shur, E. (1982). Season of birth in high and low genetic risk schizophrenics. (In the press).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Slater, E. & Glithero, E. (1963). The schizophrenic-like psychosis of epilepsy. III: Genetical aspects. British Journal of Psychiatry 109, 131–133.Google Scholar
Tsuang, M. T. (1979). Schizoaffective disorder. Dead or alive? Archives of General Psychiatry 36, 633–634.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Tsuang, M. T. & Winokur, G. (1974). Criteria for subtyping schizophrenia. Archives of General Psychiatry 31, 43–47.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Winokur, G., Morrison, J., Clancy, J. & Crowe, R. (1974). Iowa 500: the clinical and genetic distinction of hebephrenic and paranoid schizophrenia. Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease 159, 1–19.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed