Lack of association between behavioral inhibition and psychosocial adversity factors in children at risk for anxiety disorders.
OBJECTIVE
In a previous controlled study of offspring at risk for anxiety disorders, the authors found that parental panic disorder with comorbid major depression was associated with child behavioral inhibition, the temperamental tendency to be quiet and restrained in unfamiliar situations. To explore whether this association was mediated by environmental factors, the authors examined associations between psychosocial adversity variables and behavioral inhibition in this group of children.


METHODS
Subjects included 200 offspring of parents with panic disorder and/or major depression and 84 comparison children of parents without mood or anxiety disorders. Behavioral inhibition was assessed through laboratory observations. The associations between behavioral inhibition and the following psychosocial factors were examined: socioeconomic status; an index of adversity factors found in previous studies to be additively associated with child psychopathology; family intactness, conflict, expressiveness, and cohesiveness; exposure to parental psychopathology; sibship size; birth order; and gender.


RESULTS
The results showed no associations between behavioral inhibition and any of the psychosocial factors in the study group as a whole, despite adequate power to detect medium effect sizes. Among low-risk comparison children only, some definitions of behavioral inhibition were associated with low socioeconomic status, low family cohesion, and female gender.


CONCLUSIONS
The results suggest that the psychosocial adversity factors examined in this study do not explain the previous finding that offspring of parents with panic disorder are at high risk for behavioral inhibition.
Pediatric Psychopharmacology Unit, Department of Psychiatry, Massachusetts General Hospital, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA. dhirshfeld@partners.org
Dina R
DR
Hirshfeld-Becker
Joseph
J
Biederman
Stephen V
SV
Faraone
Natasha
N
Segool
Jennifer
J
Buchwald
Jerrold F
JF
Rosenbaum
D001008:Anxiety Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000523:psychology*; D002648:Child; D002653:Child Behavior Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000523:psychology*; D016241:Child of Impaired Parents / Q000523:psychology*; D002675:Child, Preschool; D003865:Major Depressive Disorder / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000523:psychology*; D005191:Family Characteristics; D005239:Fear / Q000523:psychology; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D008016:Life Change Events; D008297:Male; D016584:Panic Disorder / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000523:psychology*; D012307:Risk Factors; D012792:Shyness; D012919:Social Behavior; D012931:Social Environment; D012959:Socioeconomic Factors; D013694:Temperament