Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry
New researchRisk Factors for Conduct Disorder and Oppositional/Defiant Disorder: Evidence from a New Zealand Birth Cohort
Section snippets
Adverse Childhood Family Environment
A number of studies have identified a range of adverse childhood family environmental circumstances that are related to increased risk of behavior disorder later in life. One factor is maternal smoking during pregnancy; evidence suggests that children whose mothers smoked while pregnant are at increased risk for CD and ODD in childhood and adolescence.8, 9, 10, 11 A second factor is exposure to socioeconomic adversity; data show that living in impoverished or adverse socioeconomic conditions
Exposure to Child Abuse and Interparental Violence
An additional factor that has been linked to increased risks of behavior disorder is exposure to abuse. A number of studies have shown that exposure to sexual abuse and physical abuse in childhood, and exposure to interparental violence, are associated with increased risks of both CD and ODD symptoms in both the short and long term.19, 21, 22, 23
Individual Characteristics
In addition to the factors discussed above, a number of individual factors have also been linked to increased risks of CD and ODD. These factors include gender, cognitive ability, and deviant peer affiliation. A wide range of studies have shown that behavior disorders are more likely to occur in males than in females2, 24, 25 and are more likely to occur among individuals with lower levels of cognitive ability.2, 14, 24 Also, affiliation with deviant peers in childhood and adolescence has been
Background to the Present Study
One issue arising from the accumulated research on the etiology of behavior disorders is the extent to which the risk profile for each of the two disorders overlaps; that is, is each disorder predicted by the same risk factors, or is it the case that a particular combination of risk factors is more likely to lead to a particular disorder? A number of studies have found evidence that a common set of factors predict each of the two behavior disorders.1, 2, 3, 27 On the other hand, recent evidence
Method
Data were gathered during the course of the Christchurch Health and Development Study, a longitudinal study of an unselected birth cohort of 1,265 children born in the Christchurch (New Zealand) urban region during a 4-month period in mid-1977. This cohort has been studied at birth, 4 months, 1 year, annual intervals to age 16 years, and at ages 18, 21, 25 and 30. A more detailed description of the study and an overview of study findings have been provided by Fergusson and Horwood.36 The
Correlations Between Latent CD, ODD (Ages 14-16 years), and Predictors
Table 1 shows the estimated bivariate correlations between the latent CD and ODD constructs (see Methods) and each of the predictors, including the following: family socioeconomic disadvantage; changes of parents; parental adjustment problems; childhood abuse and interparental violence exposure; maternal smoking during pregnancy; gender; IQ; and deviant peer affiliations. Table shows the following:
- 1
With the exception of gender and ODD, each of the predictors was significantly (p < .001)
Discussion
In this paper, we have used data from a longitudinal birth cohort to examine three related issues: (1) the extent to which a range of social, family background, and individual predictors were associated with increased risk of later CD and ODD; (2) the extent to which the predictors of CD and ODD were similar; and (3) the extent to which similarity of predictors could account for the observed comorbidity between CD and ODD. These issues are addressed below.
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2022, Psychiatry ResearchCitation Excerpt :In fact, individuals with conduct disorder should be provided with opportunities for early prevention, as this disorder can be detected earlier and more effectively treated with early intervention than late (Murray et al., 2010). Some prenatal risk factors (e.g., maternal smoking, alcohol use, and drug use) and environmental risk factors (e.g., deviant peers, low socioeconomic status, poverty, and community violence) have been well documented for conduct disorder; yet, they are not specific for it (Ruisch et al., 2018; Boden et al., 2010). Thus, whether they are true causal risk factors or merely associations and the mechanisms through which they operate are difficult to elucidate.
Risk of conduct and oppositional defiant disorder symptoms in offspring of parents with mental health problems: Findings from the Raine Study
2021, Journal of Psychiatric ResearchCitation Excerpt :Paternal lifetime history of emotional problems (generation 1) was measured by using a self-reported questionnaire (yes/no) when offspring were age 10, consistently with the use of such self-reported questionnaires in the literature (Low et al., 2012; Bramness et al., 2010). CD and ODD symptoms in children and adolescents have been found to be associated with factors such as parental sociodemographic variables including maternal education, marital status, parental age, family income, and parity (Murray and Farrington, 2010; Boden et al., 2010, HENIN et al., 2005; D'Souza et al., 2019), sex of the child (Campbell, 2004), lifestyle factors (smoking and alcohol use before and during pregnancy) (O'Connor, 2014; Parker et al., 2016), parental psychiatric disorders (Ayano et al., 2021), and maternal chronic medical condition including epilepsy, diabetes mellitus and asthma (Kong et al., 2018; Huber-Mollema et al., 2019). The following were measured at baseline (during pregnancy): marital status (never married/defacto, married, divorced/separated or widowed), parental age in years (<20, 20–25, 25–29, 30–34, ≥35), educational level (no schooling/up to year 12 or equivalent, trade or apprenticeship, certificate/diploma, university/higher degree), family income (AUD <24,000, 24,000–35000, ≥36,000), parity (nullipara/parous), average cigarette smoking per day during pregnancy (0, 1–5, 6–9, 10–15, 16–19, 20, or more), and self-report alcohol use during pregnancy (yes/no).
Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder in Childhood and Adolescence and the Risk of Crime in Young Adulthood in a Danish Nationwide Study
2019, Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent PsychiatryCitation Excerpt :When analyzing the associations of parental and familial characteristics with outcomes, antisocial involvement of the parents, low family income, and coming from a broken home were all independent risk factors associated with the outcomes. These factors are well established in the literature on risks and precursors of conduct disorders and adult criminality.24,25 In addition, this well-established research finding represents critical knowledge, as it helps to nuance the clinical picture, to de-stigmatize some patients with ADHD, and to support clinicians and policy makers with respect to designing preventive programs and allocating restricted resources.
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This research was funded by grants from the Health Research Council of New Zealand, the National Child Health Research Foundation, the Canterbury Medical Research Foundation and the New Zealand Lottery Grants Board.
Disclosure: Drs. Boden and Fergusson, and Mr. Horwood report no biomedical financial interests or potential conflicts of interest.