Abstract
Background: The purpose of the present study was to investigate the role of genetic
and environmental factors in the association between depressive symptoms and symptoms
of overanxious disorder, simple phobias, and separation anxiety in 8–13-year-old and
14–17-year-old girls.
Methods: Multivariate genetic models were fitted to child-reported longitudinal symptom
data gathered from clinical interview on 415 monozygotic and 194 dizygotic female
twin pairs from the Virginia Twin Study of Adolescent Behavioral Development.
Results: Model-fitting results suggest there are distinct etiologic patterns underlying
the association between depression and the different anxiety syndromes during the
course of development: 1) specific genetic influences on depression after age 14 reflect
liability to symptoms of earlier overanxious disorder (OAD) and simple phobias; 2)
aspects of the shared environment that influence symptoms of depression before age
14 contribute to symptoms of separation anxiety and simple phobias; 3) later in adolescence
shared environmental influences depression in 14+ girls also affects liability to
symptoms of concurrent OAD and persistent separation anxiety.
Conclusions: These results suggest that depression before and after age 14 may be
etiologically distinct syndromes. Earlier symptoms of OAD and (to a lesser extent)
phobic symptoms reflect the same genetic risk, and separation anxiety symptoms both
before and after age 14 reflect the same environmental risk that influences liability
to depressive symptoms expressed in middle to late adolescence.
Keywords
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Article info
Publication history
Accepted:
April 6,
2001
Received in revised form:
April 2,
2001
Received:
November 20,
2000
Identification
Copyright
© 2001 Society of Biological Psychiatry. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
