Mood disorders, childhood maltreatment, and medical morbidity in US adults: An observational study

Childhood maltreatment contributes to the medical morbidity of individuals with bipolar disorders

BACKGROUND

Individuals with bipolar disorders (BD) are at risk of premature death, mainly due to medical comorbidities. Childhood maltreatment might contribute to this medical morbidity, which remains underexplored in the literature.

METHODS

We assessed 2891 outpatients with BD (according to DSM-IV criteria). Childhood maltreatment was assessed using the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire. Lifetime diagnoses for medical disorders were retrospectively assessed using a systematic interview and checked against medical notes. Medical morbidity was defined by the sum of medical disorders. We investigated associations between childhood maltreatment (neglect and abuse) and medical morbidity while adjusting for potential confounders.

RESULTS

One quarter of individuals had no medical comorbidities, while almost half of them had at least two. Multivariable regression showed that childhood maltreatment (mainly abuse, but also sexual abuse) was associated with a higher medical morbidity. Medical morbidity was also associated with sex, age, body mass index, sleep disturbances, lifetime anxiety disorders and lifetime density of mood episodes. Childhood maltreatment was associated with an increased prevalence of four (i.e. migraine/headache, drug eruption, duodenal ulcer, and thyroid diseases) of the fifteen most frequent medical disorders, however with no difference in terms of age at onset.

CONCLUSIONS

This large cross-sectional study confirmed a high medical morbidity in BD and its association with childhood maltreatment. The assessment of childhood maltreatment in individuals with BD should be systematically included in routine care and the potential impact on physical health of psycho-social interventions targeting childhood maltreatment and its consequences should be evaluated.

Family environment and polygenic risk in the bipolar high-risk context

Background

The interaction of polygenic risk (PRS) and environmental effects on development of bipolar disorder (BD) is understudied, as are high-risk offspring perceptions of their family environment (FE). We tested the association of offspring-perceived FE in interaction with BD-PRS on liability for BD in offspring at high or low familial risk for BD.

Methods

Offspring of a parent with BD (oBD; n = 266) or no psychiatric disorders (n = 174), aged 12-21 at recruitment, participated in the US and Australia. Empirically-derived profiles of FE classified offspring by their perceived levels of familial cohesion, flexibility, and conflict. Offspring BD-PRS were derived from Psychiatric Genomics Consortium BD-GWAS. Lifetime DSM-IV bipolar disorders were derived from the Schedule for Affective Disorders and Schizophrenia for School-Aged Children. We used a novel stepwise approach for latent class modeling with predictors and distal outcomes.

Results

Fifty-two offspring were diagnosed with BD. For those with well-functioning FE (two-thirds of the sample), higher BD-PRS tracked positively with liability for BD. However, for those with high-conflict FEs, the relationship between BD-PRS and liability to BD was negative, with highest risk for BD observed with lower BD-PRS. In exploratory analyses, European-ancestry offspring with BD had elevated history of suicidal ideation in high-conflict FE compared to well-functioning-FE, and of suicide attempt with low-BD-PRS and high-conflict FE.

Conclusions

The data suggest that the relationship of BD-PRS and offspring liability for BD differed between well-functioning versus high-conflict FE, potentially in line with a multifactorial liability threshold model and supporting future study of and interventions improving family dynamics.

Specific type of childhood trauma and borderline personality disorder in Chinese patients

Background

Childhood maltreatment (CM) is a known risk factor for the development of mental disorders. An extensive body of literature about CM and mental health has been developed in wealthy countries, but information about this connection is lacking in developing countries including China.

Aims

To explore the possible relationship between specific types of CM and borderline personality disorder (BPD) in patients with mental disorders in China.

Methods

A survey was conducted in 2006, involving over 3,402 Chinese individuals aged 18-60 years who were randomly selected from the outpatients in the Shanghai Mental Health Center. The patients were screened with the Personality Diagnostic Questionnaire and CM was assessed using the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire. The final sample comprised 178 patients with BPD, 178 patients with other personality disorders (PDs), and 178 patients without PDs.

Results

In Chinese patients, compared to other PDs, patients with BPDs are more likely to have experienced CM. Emotional maltreatment (emotional abuse and neglect) was the strongest predictor of BPD. Female gender and sexual abuse are significant predictors of the self-harm/suicidal risk of BPD patients.

Conclusion

This is a pioneering study conducted on a large set of Chinese clinical samples with paired controls to establish and compare the associations between specific CM and BPD. Further studies in this field are necessary to elucidate the mechanism of how various types of childhood trauma have influenced PDs.

Comorbidity and familial aggregation of back/neck pain in the NIMH Family Study of Affective Spectrum Disorders

OBJECTIVE

Back pain is associated with substantial Global Burden of Disease and is highly comorbid with mood and anxiety symptoms and syndromes. However, mechanisms underlying this association have not been well-elucidated. Here we apply data from the NIMH Family Study of Affective Spectrum Disorders to investigate the comorbidity, familial aggregation, and cross-aggregation of back/neck pain with mood disorder subtypes.

METHODS

The sample includes 519 probands and 560 interviewed first-degree relatives. Lifetime DSM-IV Bipolar I, Bipolar II, and Major Depressive Disorder [MDD] were derived from semi-structured diagnostic interviews. Lifetime history of back or neck pain and its age of onset were self-reported retrospectively. Familial aggregation and cross-aggregation were estimated via mixed effects models in probands and interviewed first-degree relatives, while heritability and co-heritability (endophenotypic ranking value [ERV]) were estimated using full pedigrees.

RESULTS

Over 45% of participants endorsed a history of back/neck pain. Back/neck pain was familial (adjusted odds ratio [aOR] 1.5, p = 0.04; h2 = 0.24, p = 0.009). Back/neck pain in probands was associated with MDD in relatives (aOR 1.5, p = 0.04; ERV = 0.17, p = 0.024), but not with bipolar disorder. Onset of back/neck pain occurred earlier in those with bipolar disorder compared to controls.

CONCLUSION

Findings suggest common familial risk factors underlying back/neck pain with MDD, whereas there was within-individual comorbidity of bipolar with back/neck pain. Future studies that identify common factors that lead to either back/neck pain or MDD can inform prevention and interventions.

Environmental factors in offspring of parents with mood disorders and their role in parent-child transmission: findings from a 14-year prospective high-risk study

Background

The factors involved in the transmission of mood disorders are only partially elucidated. Aside from genes, the family environment might play a crucial role in parent–child transmission. Our goals were to (1) assess the associations of parental bipolar disorder (BPD) and Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) with individual or shared family environmental factors, including traumatic events in offspring, parental separation, family cohesion and parental attitudes; and 2) test whether these factors were mediators of the association between exposure to parental mood disorders and the onset of these disorders in offspring.

Methods

The sample stems from an ongoing family high-risk study of mood disorders conducted in the French-speaking part of Switzerland. Given the strong impact of the age of onset of parental disorders on their transmission to children, parental disorders were dichotomized according to the onset (cut-off 21 years). Probands with early-onset (n = 30) and later-onset BPD (n = 51), early-onset (n = 21) and later-onset MDD (n = 47) and controls (n = 65), along with their spouses (n = 193) and offspring (n = 388; < 18 years on study inclusion), were assessed over a mean follow-up duration of 14 years (s.d: 4.6). The environmental measures were based on reports by offspring collected before the onset of their first mood episode.

Results

Offspring of probands with later-onset BPD and offspring of probands with both early-onset and later-onset MDD reported traumatic events more frequently than comparison offspring, whereas exposure to parental separation was more frequent in all groups of high-risk offspring. Moreover, several familial environment scores including parenting attitudes differed between offspring of probands with BPD and comparison offspring. However, none of these factors were mediators of the parent–child transmission of BPD. Among the environmental factors, traumatic events were shown to be modest mediators of the transmission of early-onset MDD.

Conclusions

Our data do not support the implication of the assessed environmental factors in the parent–child transmission of BPD. In contrast to BPD, traumatic events partially mediate the parent–child transmission of early-onset MDD, which has important implications for intervention and prevention. Early therapeutic efforts in offspring exposed to these events are likely to reduce their deleterious impact on the risk of subsequent MDD.

Mood and anxiety profiles differentially associate with physical conditions in US adolescents

BACKGROUND

Mood and anxiety are widely associated with physical conditions, but research and treatment are complicated by their overlap, clinical heterogeneity, and manifestation on a spectrum rather than as discrete disorders. In contrast to previous work relying on threshold-level disorders, we examined the association between empirically-derived profiles of mood and anxiety syndromes with physical conditions in a nationally-representative sample of US adolescents.

METHODS

Participants were 2,911 adolescents (aged 13-18) from the National Comorbidity Survey-Adolescent Supplement who provided information on physical conditions and reported at least one lifetime mood-anxiety 'syndrome' based on direct interviews with the Composite International Diagnostic Interview Version 3.0. Mood-anxiety syndromes reflected 3-level ratings from subthreshold to severe distress/impairment, and subtyped mood episodes. Stepwise latent profile analysis identified mood-anxiety profiles and tested associations with physical conditions.

RESULTS

Three mood-anxiety profiles were identified: "Mood-GAD" (25.6%)-non-atypical depression, mania, generalized anxiety; "Atypical-Panic" (11.3%)-atypical depression, panic; and "Reference" (63.1%)-lower mood and anxiety except specific phobia. Headaches were more prevalent in Mood-GAD and Atypical-Panic than Reference (47.9%, 50.1%, and 37.7%, respectively; p=0.011). Heart problems were more common in Mood-GAD than Atypical-Panic (7.4% v 2.2%, p=0.004) and Reference, with back/neck pain more prevalent in Mood-GAD than Reference (22.5% v 15.3%, p=0.016).

LIMITATIONS

Broad categories of physical conditions without information on specific diagnoses; replication regarding specificity is recommended.

CONCLUSIONS

Heart problems and pain-related conditions were differentially associated with specific mood-anxiety profiles. Subtyping depression and anxiety-inclusive of subthreshold syndromes-and their patterns of clustering may facilitate etiologic and intervention work in multimorbidity.

Evaluating the association of adverse childhood experiences, mood and anxiety disorders, and suicidal ideation among behavioral health patients at a large federally qualified health center

Although numerous studies have examined the relationship between adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) and suicide, research is needed that studies the effects of specific ACEs, including subclasses of ACEs, independent of the effect of other ACEs. We explored the relationship between ACEs and suicidal ideation (SI) with special attention to patterns according to generation cohort (millennials: 22-37 years old, generation X: 38-53 years old, and baby boomers: 54-72 years old), and assessed the extent to which mood and anxiety disorders account for the relationship between ACEs and suicidal ideation. Patients in behavioral healthcare services of a large federally qualified health center (n = 4,392) were assessed at baseline on ACEs, SI, and mood and anxiety disorders. Logistic regression modeling was used to examine the data. Emotional neglect was the strongest predictor of SI among Millennials (OR = 1.59), Generation X (OR = 1.81), and Baby Boomers (OR = 1.88) after controlling for mood and anxiety disorders, race/ethnicity, and gender. Findings suggest ACEs predict an increased likelihood of having SI over and above the influence of mood and anxiety disorders, in models adjusted for gender and race/ethnicity. Across generations, the association with suicidal ideation was strongest for any child abuse and neglect, but not for household dysfunction. The observed association of ACEs with suicidal ideation suggests that ACEs should be considered as a risk factor and incorporated into screening assessments for suicidal ideation. Lastly, additional research on the association of ACEs and suicidality in individuals not actively being managed in behavioral healthcare settings is also warranted.