Interrogation of one of the world’s biggest long-term child development studies has uncovered a strong association between depression among new fathers and the development of psychiatric disorders in their children by the time they are seven.

Writing in the Journal of American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Oxford University psychiatrist Paul Ramchandani says that his team’s findings have implications for the designers of all perinatal services.

Naturally enough, the majority of such services in the UK focus on mothers, but the results of his research on families included in the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC) suggest that the focus should be broadened.

“If the findings of the present study are confirmed,” Ramchandani observes, “then the identification of depression in fathers could represent an important opportunity for prevention: to improve fathers’ health, family functioning, and their children’s future psychiatric and social functioning”.

The scale of the ALSPAC study meant that Ramchandani and his colleagues were able to recruit a sample of 10,975 fathers and their children during the pre-natal period and to monitor them for seven years using various measures. One was the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression scale originally devised to a monitor post natal depression among Scottish mothers.

The developmental setbacks the team’s analysis identified among the children of depressed fathers usually took the form of oppositionally defiant or conduct disorders.

The Oxford findings are the latest in a series from researchers who have analyzed different aspects of data collected by ALSPAC. Known locally as “Children of the 90s”, the study was set up to investigate the environmental, physical and genetic pathways that predispose children to a range of common health conditions and disorders. Such ailments include asthma, food allergies, autism, eczema, dyslexia and hyperactivity.

In setting up the project, Jean Golding at the University of Bristol recruited 14,000 expectant mothers in south-west England. The mothers and their children, all from the Bristol and Bath area, have been tracked by researchers since the eighth week of pregnancy.

An impressive assortment of information has been collected from the children (and their parents) at various times along the way. Biological data relating to maternal and child blood composition, placenta, lipids, height, weight, saliva and blood pressure have been assembled alongside information about the child’s environment, socio-economic status and psychological well-being.

As a result, researchers from across the UK and beyond have been able to investigate intriguing associations for example between oily fish, breastfeeding and improvements in children’s eyesight, and to identify important connections, for example between putting babies to bed on their backs and a lesser risk of cot death, and between childhood asthma and over-hygienic home surroundings.

The sheer number of children and families initially recruited for the study and who have continued to participate is unusual and great efforts have been made to maintain it by keeping in touch with children who have moved out of the Avon area, even as far as Canada.

Families in the study are broadly representative of all families in the UK, although the proportion of ethnic minority groups is marginally lower (4.1% in ALSPAC versus 7.1% in the UK as a whole). This means that findings can be reliably extrapolated to the wider population.

A dataset of this kind is potentially fruitful for researchers interested in conducting gxe research. [See: G x E x I x D nurtures the nature of children's development]

Now directed by George Davey Smith, ALSPAC has in recent years attracted substantial funding from The Wellcome Trust, the Medical Research Council and the University of Bristol to which it continues to be affiliated.

Reference
Ramchandani P, Stein A, O’Connor T, Heron J, Murray L, Evans J (2008) “Depression in Men in the Postnatal Period and Later Child Psychopathology: A Population Case Study”, Journal of American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 47, 4, pp 390-398.