Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-dsjbd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-22T07:50:15.598Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Birth Order Sibship Size and Socio-Economic Factors in Risk of Schizophrenia in Greece

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2018

Dimitri V. Trichopoulos
Affiliation:
Department of Hygiene and Epidemiology, Medical School, University of Athens

Abstract

A case-control study was undertaken to evaluate the effects, if any, of sibship size, birth order and parents' age at birth on the risk of a person's developing schizophrenia. Information was obtained, during an 18-month period, from 221 schizophrenic patients in the only mental-health hospital of the region of Peloponese, Greece, and from an equal number of matched patients. The data were analysed by modelling through logistic regression. No relationship was found between the occurrence of schizophrenia in a patient and either father's or mother's age at patient's birth, or sibship size, or birth order, when demographic and socio-economic variables were accounted for in the analysis. Although patients with schizophrenia were of similar socio-economic status to the comparison patients, they came from families with higher original socio-economic status, a fact which appears to reflect the decline of both schizophrenic and pre-schizophrenic people in the social ladder.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Royal College of Psychiatrists, 1988 

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

Barry, H. & Barry, H. (1967) Birth order, family size, and schizophrenia. Archives of General Psychiatry, 17, 435440.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Birtchnell, J. (1970) Sibship size and mental illness. British Journal of Psychiatry, 117, 303308.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Birtchnell, J. (1971) Birth rank and mental illness. Nature, 234, 485487.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Birtchnell, J. (1972) Birth order and mental illness – a control study. Social Psychiatry, 7, 167179.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Breslow, N. & Day, N. (1980) Statistical Methods in Cancer Research, vol. I – The Analysis of Case-control Studies. Lyon: International Agency for Research on Cancer.Google Scholar
Dalen, P. (1977) Maternal age and incidence of schizophrenia in the Republic of Ireland. British Journal of Psychiatry, 131, 301305.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Erlenmeyer-Kimling, L., van den Bosch, E. & Denham, B. (1969) The problem of birth order and schizophrenia: a negative conclusion. British Journal of Psychiatry, 115, 659678.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Ernst, C. & Angst, J. (eds) (1983) Birth Order. Its Influence on Personality. Berlin: Springer-Verlag.Google 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.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Goodman, A. B., Siegel, C., Craig, T. J. & Lin, S. P. (1983) The relationship between socioeconomic class and prevalence of schizophrenia, alcoholism, and affective disorders treated by inpatient care in a suburban area. American Journal of Psychiatry, 140, 166170.Google Scholar
Granville-Grossman, K. L. (1966) Birth order and schizophrenia. British Journal of Psychiatry, 112, 11191126.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Greenwood, M. & Yule, G. U. (1914) On the determination of size of family and of the distribution of characters in order of birth. Journal of the Royal Statistical Society, 77, 179199.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Haldane, J. B. S. & Smith, C. A. (1947) A simple exact test for birth-order effect. Annals of Eugenics, 14, 117124.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hare, E. H. & Price, J. S. (1969) Birth order and family size, bias caused by changes in birth rate. British Journal of Psychiatry, 115, 647657.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hare, E. H. & Price, J. S. (1970) Birth rank in schizophrenia: with a consideration of the bias due to changes in birth-rate. British Journal of Psychiatry, 116, 409420.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hare, E. H. & Moran, P. A. P. (1979) Raised parental age in psychiatric patients: evidence for the constitutional hypothesis. British Journal of Psychiatry, 134, 169177.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kelepouris, M. B. (1969) Birth order and schizophrenia. MD Thesis, University of Athens.Google Scholar
Kinnell, B. R. G. (1983) Letter to the Editor. British Journal of Psychiatry, 142, 204.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mantel, N. (1963) Chi-square tests with one degree of freedom; extensions of the Mantel-Haenszel procedure. Journal of the American Statistical Association, 58, 690700.Google Scholar
Price, J. S. & Hare, E. H. (1969) Birth order studies: some sources of bias. British Journal of Psychiatry, 115, 633646.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Rassidakis, N., Kelepouris, M., Sparros, L. & Trichopoulos, D. (1970) La relation de la Schizophrénie avec l'ordre de la naissance des enfants selon leur sexe. Archives de l'Union Medical Balkanique, 9, 303304.Google Scholar
Schooler, C. (1961) Birth order and schizophrenia. Archives of General Psychiatry, 4, 9197.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Sundararaj, N. & Sridhara Rama Rao, B. S. (1966) Order of birth and schizophrenia. British Journal of Psychiatry, 112, 11271129.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Trichopoulos, D., Hsieh, C., MacMahon, B., Lin, T., Lowe, C. R., Mirra, A. P., Ravnihar, B., Salber, E. J., Valaoras, V. G. & Yuasa, S. (1983) Age at any birth and breast cancer risk. International Journal of Cancer, 31, 701704.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Tsuang, M. T. (1966) Birth order and maternal age of psychiatric in-patients. British Journal of Psychiatry, 112, 11311141.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Tsuang, M. T. & Winokur, G. (1974) Criteria for subtyping schizophrenia. Clinical differentiation of hebephrenic and paranoid schizophrenia. Archives of General Psychiatry, 31, 4347.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Tzimas, A., Martinos, A., Rinieris, P., Stefanis, C. (1982) Parental age, birth order and schizophrenia. Archives of the Hellenic Medical Societies, 8, 156158.Google Scholar
Wiersma, D., Giel, R., De Jong, A. & Sloof, C. J. (1983) Social class and schizophrenia in a Dutch cohort. Psychological Medicine, 13, 141150.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Submit a response

eLetters

No eLetters have been published for this article.