Teenage depression linked to father’s depression

Adolescents whose fathers have depressive symptoms are more likely to experience symptoms of depression themselves, finds a new study led by UCL researchers. While the link between mothers' depression and depression in their children is well-established, the new Lancet Psychiatry study is the first to find an association between depression in fathers and their teenaged children, independent of whether the mother has depression, in a large sample in the general population. The effects of fathers' and mothers' depression on their children's symptoms were similar in magnitude. "There's a common misconception that mothers are more responsible for their children's mental health, while fathers are less influential - we found that the link between parent and teen depression is not related to gender," said the study's lead author, Dr Gemma Lewis (UCL Psychiatry). "Family-focused interventions to prevent depression often focus more on mothers, but our findings suggest we should be just as focused on fathers," she said. The researchers drew on two large longitudinal studies of children: Growing up in Ireland, and the Millennium Cohort Study in England and Wales, using data from 6070 and 7768 families from the two studies, respectively. Parental depressive symptoms were assessed using a questionnaire when the children were 9 and 7 years old in the two cohorts, and then adolescent depressive symptoms were assessed when the children were 13 and 14 years old.