Parental characteristics and the risk of schizophrenia in a Chinese population: a case-control study

Abstract

Background: Genetic studies have provided convergent results indicating that schizophrenia is a polygenic disorder with a heritability estimate of ∼60–80%. The propensity for schizophrenia is ∼10 times higher in individuals with first-degree relatives with schizophrenia when compared to the general population.

Aim: To identify associations between parental characteristics and the risk of schizophrenia in a Chinese population.

Methods: Participants with a diagnosis of schizophrenia were recruited along with healthy controls (HCs) matched for age and gender from Weifang, China. Logistic regression models and generalized linear models were used to explore the associations between parental characteristics with the risk and age at onset of schizophrenia. In total, 414 cases and 639 HCs were recruited for the study.

Results: We observed an inverse association between levels of paternal and maternal education and risk of schizophrenia after controlling for potential confounders (Paternal: OR = 1.525, 95% CI: 1.080–2.153, p = .017; Maternal: OR = 1.984, 95% CI: 1.346-2.924, p = .001). Younger paternal and maternal childbearing age were associated with a higher risk of diagnosis of schizophrenia. We furtherly observed that individuals with earlier age at onset of schizophrenia had fewer siblings (p = .007) and had higher rates of parental marital disharmony (p = .033).

Conclusion: Our results indicate that parental years of education and age of childbearing are associated with an increased risk of schizophrenia in a Chinese population. Age of onset of schizophrenia was positively associated with a greater number of siblings and negatively associated with parental marital disharmony.

Keywords:

• Schizophrenia
• parental
• onset age
• case-control study
• Chinese

Acknowledgements

The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of the paper. We thank all our team members for their support and contributions to this study.

Ethics approval and consent to participate

This study was reviewed and approved by the Ethics Review Committee of Public Health at Peking University Health Science Center (IRB00001052-14071).

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by China Mega-Project for Infectious Diseases Grant (2017ZX10103004-16), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (81703274), the Youth Talent Support Program by the School of Public Health, Peking University, the interdisciplinary medicine Seed Fund of Peking University (BMU2018MX006) and Peking University Health Science Center Medical Cross Disciplinary Fund (BMU20140435). The supporting foundation had no involvement in study design, the collection, analysis, or interpretation of data, writing of the report; or in the decision to submit the article for publication