Transmission of Anxiety Disorders From Parents to Offspring

Though several studies report anxiety disorders run in families, the relative contribution of genes and environment is unknown. Patterns of sex-specific transmission of anxiety may point to different pathways in how parents pass anxiety disorders down to their children; however, the association of parent and offspring sex with the transmission of anxiety disorders has not been previously studied.

A cross-sectional study in Canada, found that those with a same-sex parent with an anxiety disorder were more likely to have an anxiety disorder than offspring with an opposite-sex parent with an anxiety disorder.

Findings in JAMA Network suggest a possible role of environmental factors, such as modeling and vicarious learning, in the transmission of anxiety from parents to children.

Study was designed as a semi structured interview to establish lifetime diagnoses of anxiety disorder in parents and offspring. The association between anxiety disorder in the same-sex or opposite-sex parent and anxiety disorders in the offspring wasted.

A total of 398 offspring participated in the study. Anxiety disorders in the same-sex parent were associated with increased rates of anxiety disorders in the offspring, where as anxiety disorders in the opposite-sex parent were not. Sharing a household with a same-sex parent without anxiety was associated with lower rates of offspring anxiety, but the presence of an opposite-sex parent without anxiety was not found.

Therefore, what we understand from this can be that treating parent's anxiety may protect their children from developing an anxiety disorder.

Reference: JAMA Network Open.2022;5(7):e2220919. DOI:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2022.20919.