RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 Maternal anxiety and adolescent asthma: Children of twin design suggest familial effects
JF European Respiratory Journal
JO Eur Respir J
FD European Respiratory Society
SP P1618
VO 42
IS Suppl 57
A1 Ida Havland
A1 Cecilia Lundholm
A1 Paul Lichtenstein
A1 Jenae Niderheiser
A1 Jody Ganiban
A1 Erica Spotts
A1 Hasse Walum
A1 David Reiss
A1 Catarina Almqvist
YR 2013
UL http://erj.ersjournals.com/content/42/Suppl_57/P1618.abstract
AB BackgroundCross-sectional studies indicate that maternal anxiety is associated with asthma in the adolescent child, but mechanisms are unclear.ObjectiveTo investigate the association between maternal anxiety and maternal, self- and register-based report of asthma in the adolescent child, and analyse whether it is caused by family-wide, environmental and/ or genetic factors.MethodFrom the Twin and Offspring Study of Sweden, 1691 mothers (1058 twins) and their adolescent child were included. The association between maternal self-reported anxiety and asthma based on subjective or objective measures were analysed using logistic regression. The children-of-twins design was used to explore whether genes or environment contribute to the association.ResultMaternal anxiety (OR 2.02, CI 1.15-3.55) was significantly associated with adolescent asthma reported by the mother. Maternal somatic anxiety (OR 1.74, CI 1.04-2.91) and psychic anxiety (OR 1.74, CI 1.05-2.86) was significantly associated with breathlessness reported by the adolescent child. In contrast, maternal anxiety was not associated with increased risk for the register-based outcomes of asthma diagnosis or medication. The results remained also after adjusting for covariates and the children-of-twins analyses which indicate that the association was due to familial confounding.ConclusionWe found associations between maternal anxiety and subjectively reported offspring asthma or breathlessness which may be due to familial effects. A likely candidate for explaining this familial confounding is heritable personality traits associated with both anxiety and subjective measures of asthma.Ref. Havland et al, In Press PLoS ONE 2013