He said the take-home message is that “people should be aware of their family history and immediately seek help if they are experiencing symptoms, since depression is very treatable.”
The study involved 251 young people averaging 18 years of age, plus their parents and grandparents.
Compared to young people whose parents did not have depression, those whose parents had major depression were twice as likely to develop the same illness, and were also at higher risk for disruptive disorder, addiction, suicidal thoughts and attempts, and poorer functioning.
Young people with both a depressed parent and depressed grandparent had a three-fold increased risk of major depression, the team found.
Dr. Victor Fornari directs child and adolescent psychiatry at Zucker Hillside Hospital in Glen Oaks, N.Y. He said the new research is important because, “no prior study to date has demonstrated the impact of the family history of depression in both the parents and the grandparents with direct interviews of the three generations.”
Because intervening early may help prevent or treat depression, “obtaining the family history of depression in children and adolescents beyond two generations is now clearly important,” Fornari believes.
The findings were published online Aug. 10 in the journal JAMA Psychiatry. For more information on how to get help with depression, visit SAMHSA.
