Association between pharmacotherapy for ADHD in offspring and depression-related specialty care visits by parents with a history of depressionShow others and affiliations
2019 (English)In: BMC Psychiatry, E-ISSN 1471-244X, Vol. 19, article id 224Article in journal (Refereed) Published
Abstract [en]
Background: Pharmacotherapy is effective in reducing the core symptoms of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). We aimed to investigate the concurrent association between pharmacotherapy for ADHD in offspring and depression-related specialty care visits by the parents with a history of depression.
Methods: Using data from a variety of Swedish national registers, we conducted a cohort study with 8-year follow-up of 5605 parents (3872 mothers and 1733 fathers) who had a history of depression and an offspring diagnosed with ADHD. The hazard rate for parental depression-related specialty care visits during exposed periods when the offspring was on medication for treatment of ADHD was compared with the hazard rate during unexposed periods when the offspring was off medication. Within-individual comparisons were employed to control for time-constant confounding factors.
Results: Among mothers, the crude rates of depression-related specialty care visits during exposed and unexposed periods were 61.33 and 63.95 per 100 person-years, respectively. The corresponding rates among fathers were 49.23 and 54.65 per 100 person-years. When the same parent was compared with him or herself, fathers showed a decreased hazard rate for depression-related visits during exposed periods when the offspring was on medication for treatment of ADHD as compared to unexposed periods (hazard ratio, 0.79 [95% confidence interval, 0.70 to 0.90]). No statistically significant associations were observed in mothers.
Conclusions: Among parents with a history of depression, pharmacotherapy for ADHD in offspring is concurrently associated with a decreased rate of depression-related specialty care visits in fathers but not in mothers. Future research with refined measures of parental depression and other time-varying familial factors is needed to better understand the mechanisms underlying the association.
Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
BMC , 2019. Vol. 19, article id 224
Keywords [en]
ADHD, Pharmacotherapy, Depression, Offspring, Parents
National Category
Psychiatry
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:oru:diva-75725DOI: 10.1186/s12888-019-2211-7ISI: 000475947500001PubMedID: 31315609Scopus ID: 2-s2.0-85069537504OAI: oai:DiVA.org:oru-75725DiVA, id: diva2:1342516
Funder
Swedish Research Council, 2013-2280
Note
Funding Agencies:
Swedish Initiative for Research on Microdata in the Social And Medical Sciences (SIMSAM) 340-2013-5867
National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) 1R01MH102221
2019-08-132019-08-132024-01-17Bibliographically approved