A longitudinal study of children of alcoholics: Predicting young adult substance use disorders, anxiety, and depression

This study tested the specificity of parent alcoholism effects on young adu lt alcohol and drug abuse/dependence, anxiety, and depression, and tested w hether adolescent symptomatology and substance use mediated parent alcoholi sm effects. Participants were from a longitudinal study in which a target c hild was assessed in adolescence and young adulthood with structured interv iew measures (N = 454 families at Time I). Results showed unique effects of parent alcoholism on young adult substance abuse/dependence diagnoses over and above the effects of other parental psychopathology. There was some ev idence of parent alcoholism effects on young adult depression and of matern al alcoholism effects on young adult anxiety, although these were not found consistently across subsamples. Mediational models suggested that parent a lcoholism effects could be partially (but not totally) explained by adolesc ent externalizing symptoms.