Search

For prevention of anxiety in children and adolescents, it is important to know whether family stress is a predictor of anxiety. We studied this in 1,875 adolescents from the Tracking Adolescents’ Individual Lives Survey (TRAILS) who were followed up for 2 years, from age 10–12 to 12–14 years. Adolescents reported anxiety and depression symptoms at both assessments, and parents reported family stress (family dysfunction and parenting stress) at the first assessment. Family dysfunction was not associated with future anxiety, whereas high parenting stress was. Furthermore, family dysfunction was more strongly associated with anxiety than with depression, whereas parenting stress was more strongly associated with depression. Level of parental psychopathology explained part of the association of family stress with anxiety. The associations were modest and the understanding of the origins of adolescents’ anxiety will require identifying other factors than family stress that account for more of the variance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: ADHD is a highly heritable disorder but gene finding studies have been unsuccessful so far. Cognitive traits like executive functions, IQ and academic achievement measures have been associated to ADHD. These associations may direct to biological mechanisms, and related genes, that are involved in ADHD. Methods: The current study investigated the etiology of the relation between ADHD related symptoms and educational achievement. Subjects were 568 Dutch twin pairs. Maternal ratings on ADHD symptoms were assessed at age 5 and at age 7. Academic achievement was measured with standardized tests on mathematics, comprehension, reading and spelling in grade 2, 4 and 6. Results: Results show that ADHD related symptoms correlated around -0.20 with comprehension and mathematics, and around -0.12 with reading and spelling on a phenotypic level. Phenotypic correlations were predominantly determined by genetic factors; environmental factors did not contribute to the association. Discussion and conclusion: Previous studies reported genetic associations between IQ and ADHD related symptoms. The genetic overlap in ADHD and cognitive measures shows that cognitive abilities should be taken into account regarding etiological factors of the disorder. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]