This is a proposal to assess psychiatric disorders and addictive behaviors in the first-degree relatives of a sample of opiate addicts and to evaluate the applicability of genetic and non-genetic models as explanations for the patterns of disorders observed in addicts' families. Continued support is requested: 1) to complete and expand the data analysis and 2) to conduct a pilot/feasibility study of psychiatric disorders and indices of disturbed functioning in the children of opiate addicts in our sample. Over the next several months we will have obtained psychiatric diagnoses based on Research Diagnostic Criteria in a sample of 210 opiate addicts and 900 adult first-degree relatives. Preliminary analyses on a partial sample suggest that rates of psychiatric disorders in opiate addicts' first-degree relatives are: a) high in comparison with community rates, b) related to co-existent psychiatric disorders in the opiate-addict probands, c) related to the generation of the relative. In addition, parental disorders including major depression and substance abuse are associated with higher risk for psychiatric disorders in opiate addicts' siblings. Extension of the time allotted for analysis of the final data set is requested a) in order to allow time to complete the original extensive analysis of this complex data set, b) to evaluate methodological issues concerning diagnoses obtained from different sources of information and c) to evaluate the heterogeneity of opiate addict probands as it relates to familial transmission of disorders. To increase the genetic, epidemiologic, and clinical yield of this study's findings, we propose to conduct a pilot investigation of an estimated 165 children of opiate addicts in our sample. Information on psychological functioning, behavioral problems, social functioning, and psychiatric diagnosis (for children 8 and up) will be obtained from opiate addict parents, primary caregivers, teachers, and direct interview (for children 8 and up) in order to a) evaluate the accessibility of children in the sample to determine the adequacy of the sample size in a later, more definitive study, b) generate preliminary findings from interviews of adult informants which might indicate the promise of a more extensive study with interviews of all children, c) detect possible precursors of psychiatric disorders in children before theys have reached age of maximum risk for many childhood disorders, d) evaluate the reliability and validity of data derived from different sources about the children.
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