The Sources of Parent-Child Transmission of Drug Abuse: Path Analyses of Not-Lived-With Parental Step-Parental Triparental and Adoptive Families

摘要

To clarify the origins of parent-child resemblance for drug abuse (DA), using national Swedish data, we fit path models to information on DA in parents and children from six informative family types: i) not-lived-with father, ii) not-lived-with mother, iii) step-father, iv) step-mother, v) triparental, and vi) adoptive. From these families, we estimated parent-offspring resemblance reflecting the effects of genes + rearing, genes only and rearing only. The estimates of parent-offspring correlations were statistically homogenous across family types. The weighted estimate of the father-offspring correlation for DA for genes + rearing, genes only and rearing only relationships were, respectively, +0.26, +0.19 and +0.06. Parallel figures for mother-offspring relationships were +0.19, +0.13 and +0.09. In both genes + rearing and genes only parent-offspring relationships, DA correlations were stronger for fathers than for mothers. Both genetic and environmental factors contribute substantially to parent-offspring resemblance for DA and appear to be additive.