Does suicidal ideation and depressive mood of parents affect their adolescent children's mental health?

Abstract

Background: Depression in adolescence is a social problem that has detrimental effects on an individual's physical and mental health and increases health care burden on families and society. This study investigates the connection between mental illness among parents and their adolescent children in Korea.

Methods: The sample included parents of 5315 adolescents (12-24 years) and data were obtained from the Korea National Health and Nutrition Survey (KNHANES) from 2007 to 2017. Family based comprehensive questionnaires were used. Multivariate logistic regression models were performed to estimate odds ratios (ORs) at 95% confidence intervals (95% CIs).

Results: The main findings showed that daughters with depressed mothers were 1.92 times more likely to experience depression and 1.64 times more likely to have suicidal ideations. In particular, when father was suicidal, his daughter had a 2.59 times higher risk of suicidal thoughts than father was not depressed and had no suicidal thoughts. Sons' depressive mood was rarely affected by the psychological status of mothers and fathers.

Limitation: There are under-report issue of feelings and study design is cross-sectional.

Conclusions: This study showed gender differences in the association between parents' and adolescents' experience of depression. Thus, the daughter's psychological state was found to be strongly associated with the psychological state of both parents.