Commonly occurring adversities in families as risk factors for developing psychosocial and psychiatric morbidities: evidence from general practice

BACKGROUND: Childhood adversity may lead to mental and somatic complications throughout life. General practitioners are equipped to identify and manage adverse events in households. The relationship between adversities and psychiatric symptoms has not been studied in primary care. AIMS: We investigated the relationship of common adversities in families with respect to subsequent development of psychosocial and psychiatric problems in young children. METHOD: We analysed data from seven general practices, including participants between 0 and 9 years of age. Adversity was defined as having a household member who was diagnosed with cancer, psychiatric disease or social problems. We compared these patients with controls matched for gender, age and general practice. The primary outcome was any new episode defined with a psychological and psychiatric label. Secondarily, the encounter rates at the general practices after adversity were analysed. RESULTS: Participants in both groups were followed for an average of 12 years, whereby patients with an adversity were more likely to develop psychiatric morbidities compared with matched references (odds ratio 1.38, 95% CI 1.12–1.68, P = 0.002), also revealing higher encounter rates at general practices. We found no statistically significant association between adversities in the family and increased psychosocial symptoms. CONCLUSIONS: The short- and long-term consequences of exposure to negative events in childhood are of great public health importance. Our data suggest screening more proactively for consequences of commonly occurring adversities in families, as they are a risk factor for subsequent psychiatric symptoms. Enhanced consultation frequency at general practitioners following adversities should be differentiated in more detail.