This revised new investigator ROl application proposes an assessment of adult twin pairs, their full siblings, and parents ascertained via twins' participation in a recently completed survey of the Australian National Health and Medical Research Council '1989 cohort. The target sample will be: (1) a """"""""childhood abuse"""""""" (CA) group (N=500 families) in which at least one twin reported having experienced childhood sexual abuse (CSA), physical abuse (PA), or both; and (2) a """"""""control"""""""" group (N=500 families) in which neither twin reported a history of abuse, matched to the CA group on the basis of gender. zygosity, and age.
The specific aims of this investigation are:
AIM1 To examine parental alcoholism and other parental predictors of offspring CSA and PA, and the routes by which these associations are mediated.
AIM2 To use data from non-abused co-twins and siblings to control for family background risk factors to permit: (i) improved estimation of the risks for negative outcomes associated with CSA and PA; (ii) examination of routes by which these risks are mediated and moderated.
AIM3 To more comprehensively determine the contributions of CSA and PA, cluster B personality disorders, depression, and anxiety disorders, to the inheritance of alcohol dependence risk and to identify critical intervening variables.
These aims will be accomplished by better assessing childhood abuse and neglect history and additional Axis I and II diagnoses in previously interviewed adult twin pairs and by obtaining comprehensive assessments of parents and other siblings (Axis I and H psychopathology as well as childhood abuse and neglect). Despite the limitations of retrospective data, this study population offers important advantages: 1) data available from the recently completed, extensive assessment of twins including history of early home environment, traumatic events, drug use, and parental alcohol problems in addition to psychiatric diagnostic assessments; 2) families with a demonstrated history of cooperation including the twins' willingness to allow telephone assessment of questions about CSA and PA history; 3) an established relationship between twin reports of childhood abuse and parental alcohol problems; 4) very low frequency of abstinence and high mean levels of alcohol consumption suggest that hypothesized relationships are likely to be expressed; 5) a powerful twin sibship design; 6) an ability to generalize findings to the twin panel as a whole.
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