Genetic and environmental influences on emotional and behavioral problems in children and adolescents / 中国神经精神疾病杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective To explore the influence of genetic and environmental factors on emotional and behavioral problems in children and adolescents using twins quantitative method. Methods One hundred fifty-six twins pairs, aged from 6 to 18, were included in the present study. The parental version of the strengths and difficulties questionnaire (SDQ)was used to evaluate their emotional and behavioral problems. The DNA test of twin zygosity was conducted using DNA extracted from buccal mucosa or venous blood samples. The influence of genetic and environmental factors on emo-tional and behavioral problems was analyzed using structural equation modeling(SEM). Results Shared environment and special environment had impact on emotional symptoms and their contribution to the total variance of emotional symp- tom was 0.42 and 0.58, respectively. Prosocial behavior was mainly affected by shared environment and the contribution of shared environment to the total variance of prosocial behavior was 0.89. Genetic factors had greater influence on hyperac-tivity/attention deficit and the contribution of genetic factors to the total variance was 0.62. Shared environment had more influence on conduct disorder and the contribution of shared environment to total variance was 0.56. Heredity, shared envi-ronment and special environment had impact on peer problems and their contribution to the total variance was 0.24, 0.33 and 0.43, respectively. Conclusion In child and adolescent period, emotional symptoms are only affected by environ-ment, while behavior problems are affected by the combination of heredity and environment. Different behavior problems are affected by different genetic and environmental factors.