The Influence of Informant Characteristics on the Reliability of Family History Interviews

Abstract

Family history interviews are widely used in psychiatric research, as well as in genetic and twin studies, and provide a way to collect family history information quickly and economically. To obtain a valid assessment of family history, it is important to investigate which family member will be able to provide accurate information. Previous research shows that the validity of family history reporting can be influenced by characteristics of the informant, such as age, gender and personal history of psychiatric disorder. The aim of this study was to investigate the role of a subject's position in a pedigree on the validity of data collection. Family history data on diabetes and psychiatric disorders were collected in three generations of 33 families by interviewing both an index subject (3rd generation) and his or her mother (2nd generation). Mothers were shown to report higher rates of diabetes and psychiatric disorder in the family compared to the index subjects. There was no significant difference in the disease rate reported by male and female index subject. Mothers who experienced a depressive episode indicated significantly more family members as having a psychiatric disorder than mothers who never experienced such an episode. This could be explained by the presence of informant bias, but may also result from the fact that depression is a heritable disorder and is therefore actually more prevalent in these families. Our findings suggest that family interview data should be collected by interviewing subjects who have a central position in the pedigree and can therefore provide information on his/her own generation, the previous and the next. In addition, psychiatric status of the informant should be carefully addressed.

The Association between Intelligence Scores and Family History of Psychiatric Disorder in Schizophrenia Patients, Their Siblings and Healthy Controls

“…In patients, this would usually be the mother of the patient. Informant differences could potentially influence the reliability of the collected information since previous research indicates that a person with a central position in the pedigree should be the informant of choice [46]. However, the impact on the findings of this study is expected to be small because we would not expect this informant bias to be different in families with and without a family history of psychiatric disorder.…”

A Phenotype of Childhood Autism Is Associated with Preexisting Maternal Anxiety and Depression

“…Conversely, mothers may have over-reported symptoms of anxiety or depression during pregnancy or falsely remembered a professional diagnosis that could explain variations in mood during the pregnancy period. Another consideration is that some studies describe over-reporting of psychiatric conditions in children of mothers with mood disorders, which could also influence our findings (De Los Reyes and Kazdin 2005; Verweij et al 2011)). Third, our results were restricted to preschool children with ASD who live in specific catchment areas and are not necessarily generalizable to older children or to those living in other geographic settings.…”

The role of family history in mental health service utilization for major depression

“…First, individuals with MDD may be more likely to report parental history of the same disorder because they are more sensitized to it (Chapman et al, 1994;Kendler et al, 1991). Reassuringly, family history data in our study were obtained from participants who have a central position in the family pedigree and can provide reliable information on their siblings and parents (Verweij et al, 2011). Second, family history of depression is a marker of greater severity (greater number of symptoms and comorbidities) and earlier disease onset (Keyes et al, 2012;McLaughlin et al, 2012a;Serretti et al, 2013), which also predicts treatment-seeking (Olfson et al, 2003).…”

“…Participants' reports typically underestimate family history of mental disorders, but this effect seems weaker in parents than in other, more remote, family members (Verweij et al, 2011). Fourth, data on family history of major depression is based on relatives ever being depressed (diagnosed or treated for depression).…”