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Renee D. Goodwin, PhD, MPH; Priya Wickramaratne, PhD; Yoko Nomura, PhD; Myrna M. Weissman, PhD

Arch Pediatr Adolesc Med. 2007;161(5):487-494.

Objective  To determine the relationship between parental major depression and respiratory illness in youth.

Design  Three-generation family cohort study.

Setting  Baseline study initiated at the Yale University Depression Research Unit.

Participants  One hundred sixty-one children and their parents and grandparents.

Main Exposure  Family history of major depression.

Main Outcome Measures  We studied the lifetime prevalence of respiratory illness and a range of other physical disorders, including gastrointestinal, neurodevelopmental, and cardiovascular diseases, in offspring of parents with and without major depression. Analyses were also stratified by parental and grandparental major depression status and were adjusted for age, sex, parental prenatal smoking, and parental functional impairment.

Results  Parental major depression is associated with a significantly increased likelihood of respiratory illness in youth (odds ratio, 3.7; 95% confidence interval, 1.6-8.6). This association persists after adjusting for age, sex, parental prenatal smoking, parental respiratory disease, and parental functional impairment.

Conclusions  Our results suggest that youth of parents with major depression may have heightened vulnerability to respiratory illness. Neither parental respiratory illness, prenatal smoking, nor functional impairment appears to explain this link.

Author Affiliations: Departments of Epidemiology (Drs Goodwin and Weissman), and Biostatistics (Dr Wickramaratne) Mailman School of Public Health; and Department of Psychiatry, College of Physicians and Surgeons (Drs Wickramaratne and Weissman), Columbia University; New York State Psychiatric Institute (Drs Wickramaratne and Weissman); and Department of Psychiatry, Mount Sinai School of Medicine (Dr Nomura), New York, NY.

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