Study: Mental Health Risk Higher When Siblings Are Depressed

Having a sibling with schizophrenia increases the risk of developing the condition by 10-fold, according to the results of a recent trial.

Whether heritability contributes to the risk of developing schizophrenia and affective disorders is not well understood.
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For this reason, researchers conducted a study of the siblings of 6111 hospitalized patients with a diagnosis of broadly or narrowly defined schizophrenia, schizoaffective disorder, bipolar disorder, or unipolar depression and age- and gender-matched controls (n=74,988) in Israel.

Overall, siblings of patients with broadly defined schizophrenia had a significantly higher risk of hospitalization for broadly and narrowly defined schizophrenia, schizoaffective disorder, and bipolar disorder compared with controls. Siblings of those with narrowly defined schizophrenia had an increased risk of broadly defined schizophrenia, schizoaffective disorder, and narrowly defined schizophrenia compared with controls. Siblings of those with bipolar disorder had a significantly higher risk of hospitalization for broadly defined schizophrenia and for other psychiatric disorders. Siblings of those with unipolar depression had significantly increased risk of hospitalization for broadly and narrowly defined schizophrenia and other psychiatric disorders compared with controls.

“This large, representative, population-based study provided the opportunity to examine the risk of hospitalization for a wide range of psychiatric disorders among siblings of probands with [schizophrenia] or [bipolar]. Our data highlights the psychiatric pathologies that siblings of patients affected with [schizophrenia] or [bipolar] are most likely to develop.”

—Michael Potts

Reference:

Jacobs A, Popovic D, Goldberg S, et al. Risk of psychiatric disorders in siblings of patients diagnosed with schizophrenia or affective disorders. Presented at the 29th Annual ECNP Congress; Vienna, Austria; September 20, 2016.