Research

• What was the name of Gottesman's research?

  'Disorders in offspring with two psychiatrically ill parents'
• What was his aim?

  To investigate the importance of genetic influence on offspring, where both parents have been admitted with a severe psychiatric disorder.
• What were they specifically interested in?

  The researchers were interested in vulnerability to any mental disorder of children whose parents suffer from schizophrenia or bipolar disorder.
• Who was the study based on?

  Records of families from the national register in Denmark
• What method was used to select participants for the study?

  Random sampling from a population
• What was the approximate population size from which participants were drawn?

  2.7 million Danish people
• What age range did the participants belong to?

  Born between 1968 and 1997
• What was ensured about the participants' parents?

  Participants had identifiable mother and father
• In what year was the data sampled?

  2007
• What was the minimum age of participants at the time of data sampling?

  10 years old
• Which register was used to identify families with mental illness?

  Danish Psychiatric Central Register
• What information does the Danish Psychiatric Central Register contain?

  All psychiatric admissions in Denmark
• What years does the Danish Psychiatric Central Register cover?

  1970-2007
• How were families identified for the study based on parental mental illness?

  By identifying families with admitted parents
• How many experimental groups were there?

  two
• What was the first experimental group?

  A sample of 279 couples who had both been admitted with either schizophrenia or bipolar disorder, and their children (416)
• What was the second experimental group?

  20001 couples where one parent had been admitted with either schizophrenia or bipolar disorder and their children (37030)
• What two other groups were there?

  Two control groups
• What was the first control group?

  A group of people with neither parent having bad mental illness
• What was the second control group?

  A group of 'general public' where there was no data on whether they had parents with a psychiatric disorder
• What were these two control groups a representation of?

  The baseline of psychiatric illness in the general population
• What type of data did he use?

  He used secondary data from the national statistics to identify people with these diagnoses
• How was his research ethical?

  It was anonymised and therefore did not need to gain ethical consent from the Danish Ethics Committee
• What was the age range of the children of each couple?

  10-52 years
• What were the children checked for?

  They were checked in the same register for any diagnosis of mental disorder
• What were the two dependant variables?

  1. Diagnosis of any disorder
  2. Diagnosis of schizophrenia or bipolar disorder
• What was the greatest finding?

  The child with both parents being diagnosed with schizophrenia, had a 67.5% chance of developing any disorder.
• What was the finding for the children with parents who had no disorder?

  They had a 11.9% chance of developing any disorder but a 0.86% chance for developing schizophrenia and 0.48% for developing bipolar disorder
• What was the finding for the chances of developing any disorder when only one parent had a mental illness?

  The child with either one parent having schizophrenia or bipolar, had no reported results
• What were the key findings?

  • Diagnosis of any disorder is due to genetics as you are more likely to be diagnosed with schizophrenia if both parents have it - 67.5%
  • Whereas if your parents have no disorder, you are less likely to develop one either - 11.9%
• What was the first conclusion?

  • If both parents have a serious mental illness, this significantly increases the risk of developing not just that particular disorder but other disorders.
• What was the second conclusion?

  Having one parent with the disorder increases the risk compared to the general population, but having two mentally ill parents creates an even greater risk.
• What was the final conclusion?

  Genetics does appear to play a huge role in the development of a disorder. However other factor contribute too.