Birth Order and Psychopathology

Abstract

Context:Ordinal position the child holds within the sibling ranking of a family is related to intellectual functioning, personality, behavior, and development of psychopathology.Aim:To study the association between birth order and development of psychopathology in patients attending psychiatry services in a teaching hospital.Settings and Design:Hospital-based cross-sectional study.Materials and Methods:Retrospective file review of three groups of patients was carried out. Patient-related variables like age of onset, birth order, family type, and family history of mental illness were compared with psychiatry diagnosis (ICD-10) generated.Statistical Analysis:SPSS 13; descriptive statistics and one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) were used.Results:Mean age of onset of mental illness among the adult general psychiatry patients (group I, n = 527) was found to be 33.01 ± 15.073, while it was 11.68 ± 4.764 among the child cases (group II, n = 47) and 26.74 ± 7.529 among substance abuse cases (group III, n = 110). Among group I patients, commonest diagnosis was depression followed by anxiety and somatoform disorders irrespective of birth order. Dissociative disorders were most prevalent in the first born child (36.7%) among group II patients. Among group III patients, alcohol dependence was maximum diagnosis in all birth orders.Conclusions:Depression and alcohol dependence was the commonest diagnosis in adult group irrespective of birth order.

Mood Symptoms, Suicide, and Associated Factors Among Jimma Community. A Cross-Sectional Study

“…In the current study, respondents with first and second birth order status were more prone to have depression symptoms than those with third and above birth order status. This finding is in line with the study done in Nepal ( 74 ). However, no difference was observed in the study done in Egypt ( 75 ).…”

Prevalence of Social Anxiety Disorder Among Secondary School Students in Al Baha Region in (Ksa).

“…The current study showed that there is highly statistically significant difference between birth order and social anxiety which is consistent with Risal and Tharuur [11] who stated that there are associations between birth order and various forms of psychopathology including anxiety and depression . the firstborn child also appear to be more neurotic in the sense of being temperamental and anxious about their status.…”

Commentary: Exploring Mental Health Status and Syndrome Patterns Among Young Refugee Children in Germany

“…It is noteworthy to mention that Buchmüller et al only included one child per family but did not report birth order of the children assessed. There is some suggestion from the literature that birth order has differential effects on psychopathology, which may in turn affect the CBCL scores reported (7–9).…”