Parental education and children's depression, anxiety, and ADHD traits, a within-family study in MoBa.

ABSTRACT: Children born to parents with fewer years of education are more likely to have depression, anxiety, and attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), but it is unclear to what extent these associations are causal. We estimated the effect of parents' educational attainment on children's depressive, anxiety, and ADHD traits at age 8 years, in a sample of 40,879 Norwegian children born in 1998-2009 and their parents. We used within-family Mendelian randomization, which employs genetic variants as instrumental variables, and controlled for direct genetic effects by adjusting for children's polygenic indexes. We found little evidence that mothers' or fathers' educational attainment independently affected children's depressive, anxiety, or ADHD traits. However, children's own polygenic scores

SUBMITTER: Hughes AM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11258307 | biostudies-literature | 2024 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature