Exploring protective and risk factors in the home environment in high-risk families – results from the Danish High Risk and Resilience Study—VIA 7

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  • Thorup, Anne Amalie Elgaard
  • Ditte Lou Gantriis
  • Aja Neergaard Greve
  • Maria Toft Henriksen
  • Kate Kold Zahle
  • Henriette Stadsgaard
  • Ditte Ellersgaard
  • Birgitte Klee Burton
  • Camilla Jerlang Christiani
  • Katrine Spang
  • Nicoline Hemager
  • Jens Richardt Møllegaard Jepsen
  • Kerstin J. Plessen
  • Nordentoft, Merete
  • Ole Mors
  • Vibeke Bliksted

Background: Exposure to inadequate home environment may put the healthy development of familial high-risk children at risk. This study aimed to investigate associations between risk factors and an adequate home environment of children having a parent diagnosed with schizophrenia or bipolar disorder. Methods: From a cohort of 522 children, data from 463 7-year-old children was included. Of these 172 children had familial risk for schizophrenia, 109 children had familial risk for bipolar disorder, and 190 were population-based controls. As part of a comprehensive battery, all participants were assessed with the Middle Childhood-Home Observation for Measurement of the Environment Inventory (MC-HOME Inventory) measuring the quality of the home environment. Results: When analyzing all families together, we found that having a parent diagnosed with schizophrenia would have a negative impact on the home environment (ß = -1.08; 95% CI (-2.16;-0.01); p = 0.05), while familial risk for bipolar disorder did not show significant predictive value. Being a single caregiver and child having experienced severe life events from ages 4 to 7 showed significant negative impact, while child having a mental illness diagnosis did not. Being a female caregiver, good social functioning of the caregiver, high child IQ and not being a single caregiver were found to predict positive values for the home environment. We found similar results when analyzing caregivers with and without a diagnosis separately. Conclusions: Knowledge of what predicts good home environment should be used to inform development of early interventions for families at risk.

Original languageEnglish
Article number100
JournalBMC Psychiatry
Volume22
ISSN1471-244X
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2022

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2022, The Author(s).

    Research areas

  • Bipolar disorder, Familial high-risk, Home environment, Risk factors, Schizophrenia

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