Table 3

Comparisons of psychiatric symptoms’ frequencies between mothers of children with a CNV and mothers from the community sample, as well as before and after the birth of the child

Mothers of children with a CNVMothers from the community sampleχ2P value
Nsample/Ntotal (%)Nsample/Ntotal (%)
N=268N=2680
Ever depression142/268 (53)319/2680 (13)311.69<0.001
 Sought treatment120/142 (45)207.74<0.001
 Medication105/142 (39)147.2<0.001
N=246N=2460
Anorexia21/245 (9)59/2460 (2)29.4<0.001
Bulimia17/245 (7)61/2460 (3)15.7<0.001
N=242N=2420
Alcohol abuse10/242 (4)21/2420 (1)20.4<0.001
N=244N=2440
Drug addiction7/244 (3)11/2440 (0)19.5<0.001
After the birth of the child*
N=88N=176
Depression43/88 (48)77/176 (44)0.620.43
N=84N=840
Anxiety27/57 (55)184/656 (30)4.50.03
N=9N=80
Depression3 (33)39/80 (44)0.770.38
Anxiety2 (22)19/80 (24)0.010.92

  • Individuals were matched for their age at the time their child was born. Five mothers of children with CNV included in previous tables did not have data on age; therefore, they were not included in this analysis. There was no question available in ALSPAC that we could directly map to the Experiences of People with Copy Number Variants study related to ‘ever had anxiety disorders’, but there was a question, ‘have you had anxiety since the birth of your child’ which is included in the ‘after the birth of the child’ analyses.

  • *In the ‘After the birth of the child’ table, we selected mothers who had a psychiatric diagnosis and also data on whether the diagnosis was before or after the birth of their child. Out of 268 mothers of children with CNV, 88 mothers had complete information on whether their psychiatric diagnosis was before or after the birth of their child. They were matched in a 1:2 ratio with mothers from the community sample, because the total of the mothers from the community sample with data on depression and whether it was before or after the birth of their child was n=863.