Temperamental traits and adverse experiences during childhood may together offer clues to vulnerability to major psychiatric disorders, a transdiagnostic study by researchers at NIMHANS has found.
The adult temperament measures were self-reported and could be influenced by current illness, treatment, illness duration or an individual’s perception of their own past Reports of childhood adversity may also be affected by recall and measurement biases. The researchers examined four broad dimensions of adult temperament – negative affectivity, extraversion/surgency, effortful control and orienting sensitivity – along with adverse childhood experiences (ACEs). “Childhood adversity appears to add another layer to the relationship between temperament and psychiatric vulnerability. In our study, the evidence for this interaction was particularly apparent in alcohol use disorder, rather than uniformly across all four disorders,” Dr. The researchers, however, cautioned against interpreting the findings as evidence that a particular temperament or childhood experience causes a psychiatric disorder. The study was cross-sectional, meaning that the assessments were made at one point in time. Such studies could help determine whether particular temperamental characteristics precede the onset of psychiatric illness or are partly consequences of illness and its treatment. However, they stressed that the present findings do not establish that these measures can predict who will develop a psychiatric disorder.
The study, published recently in the Journal of Affective Disorders , examined 1,162 adults, including 532 people with psychiatric disorders, 457 unaffected first-degree relatives (FDRs) and 173 healthy controls. The participants were drawn from 393 multiplex families – families in which multiple members had been diagnosed with psychiatric disorders – involving schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) and alcohol use disorder (AUD).
Balachander said. The researchers said the findings point to the need for prospective studies that follow unaffected family members over time. The researchers said that studying temperament alongside childhood adversity could eventually provide a more nuanced understanding of psychiatric vulnerability than considering family history alone.
