Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-s2hrs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-03T02:26:42.706Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

A Search for ‘Schizophrenia Spectrum Disorders’: An Application of a Multiple Threshold Model to Blind Family Study Data

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 January 2018

Ming T. Tsuang
Affiliation:
Brown University; Psychiatric Epidemiology Research Unit, Butler Hospital, 345 Blackstone Boulevard, Providence, Rhode Island 02906, USA
Kathleen D. Bucher
Affiliation:
Department of Preventive Medicine and Environmental Health, University of Iowa College of Medicine; Department of Human Genetics, University of Michigan
Jerome A. Fleming
Affiliation:
Psychiatric Epidemiology Research Unit, Butler Hospital, Providence, Rhode Island

Summary

Family data from schizophrenic and control probands were analyzed using a descriptive analysis and multiple threshold models to determine whether a given group of diagnoses made in accordance with ICD–9 was aetiologically related to schizophrenia. The proportion of relatives receiving any psychiatric diagnosis, other than schizophrenia and affective disorder, was essentially the same between the two study groups. Furthermore, the data did not fit the multiple threshold model tested. Thus, the hypothesis that schizophrenia and a spectrum of disorders defined according to ICD–9 have a common familial aetiology was not accepted.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © 1983 The Royal College of Psychiatrists 

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

Carey, G. & Gottesman, I. I. (1981) Defining cases by genetic criteria. In What is a Case? The Problem of Definition in Psychiatric Community Surveys (eds. Wing, J. K., Bebbington, P. and Robins, L. N.), pp 2941. London: Grant McIntyre.Google Scholar
Falconer, D. S. (1965) The inheritance of liability to certain diseases, estimated from the incidence among relatives. Annals of Human Genetics, 29, 5176.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Feighner, J. P., Robins, E., Guze, S. B., Woodruff, R. A. Winokur, G. & Munoz, R. (1972) Diagnostic criteria for use in psychiatric research. Archives of General Psychiatry, 26, 5763.Google Scholar
Kaplan, E. B. & Elston, R. C. (1972) A subroutine package for maximum likelihood estimation (MAXLIK). Institute of Statistics Mimeo Series No. 823, University of North Carolina.Google Scholar
Morrison, J., Clancy, J., Crowe, R. & Winokur, G. (1972) The Iowa 500: I. Diagnostic validity in mania, depression and schizophrenia. Archives of General Psychiatry, 27, 457–61.Google Scholar
Reich, T., James, J. W. & Morris, C. A. (1972) The use of multiple thresholds in determining the mode of transmission of semi-continuous traits. Annals of Human Genetics, 36, 163–84.Google Scholar
Reich, T., Cloninger, C. R. & Guze, S. B. (1975) The multifactorial model of disease transmission: I. Description of the model and its use in psychiatry. British Journal of Psychiatry, 127, 110.Google Scholar
Reich, T., Rice, J., Cloninger, C. R., Wette, R. & James, J. W. (1979) The use of multiple thresholds and segregation analysis in analyzing the phenotypic heterogeneity of multifactorial traits. Annals of Human Genetics, 42, 371–89.Google Scholar
Reich, W. (1976) The schizophrenia spectrum: A genetic concept. The Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, 162, 312.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Tsuang, M. T., Winokur, G. & Crowe, R. R. (1980a) Morbidity risks of schizophrenia and affective disorders among first degree relatives of patients with schizophrenia, mania, depression and surgical conditions. British Journal of Psychiatry, 137, 497504.Google Scholar
Tsuang, M. T., Woolson, R. F. & Simpson, J. C. (1980b). The Iowa structured psychiatric interview: Rationale, reliability and validity. Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica, Suppl. 283, Vol. 62.Google Scholar
Submit a response

eLetters

No eLetters have been published for this article.