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. 2014 May;44(7):1439-49.
doi: 10.1017/S0033291713001591. Epub 2013 Aug 7.

Aetiological overlap between obsessive-compulsive and depressive symptoms: a longitudinal twin study in adolescents and adults

K Bolhuis  1 , T A McAdams  2 , B Monzani  3 , A M Gregory  4 , D Mataix-Cols  3 , A Stringaris  1 , T C Eley  2
Affiliations
Free PMC article

Aetiological overlap between obsessive-compulsive and depressive symptoms: a longitudinal twin study in adolescents and adults

K Bolhuis et al. Psychol Med. 2014 May.
Free PMC article

Abstract

Background: Depression is commonly co-morbid with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). However, it is unknown whether depression is a functional consequence of OCD or whether these disorders share a common genetic aetiology. This longitudinal twin study compared these two hypotheses.

Method: Data were drawn from a longitudinal sample of adolescent twins and siblings (n = 2651; Genesis 12-19 study) and from a cross-sectional sample of adult twins (n = 4920). The longitudinal phenotypic associations between OCD symptoms (OCS) and depressive symptoms were examined using a cross-lag model. Multivariate twin analyses were performed to explore the genetic and environmental contributions to the cross-sectional and longitudinal relationship between OCS and depressive symptoms.

Results: In the longitudinal phenotypic analyses, OCS at time 1 (wave 2 of the Genesis 12-19 study) predicted depressive symptoms at time 2 (wave 3 of the Genesis 12-19 study) to a similar extent to which depressive symptoms at time 1 predicted OCS at time 2. Cross-sectional twin analyses in both samples indicated that common genetic factors explained 52-65% of the phenotypic correlation between OCS and depressive symptoms. The proportion of the phenotypic correlation due to common non-shared environmental factors was considerably smaller (35%). In the adolescent sample, the longitudinal association between OCS at time 1 and subsequent depressive symptoms was accounted for by the genetic association between OCS and depressive symptoms at time 1. There was no significant environmental association between OCS and later depressive symptoms.

Conclusions: The present findings show that OCS and depressive symptoms co-occur primarily due to shared genetic factors and suggest that genetic, rather than environmental, effects account for the longitudinal relationship between OCS and depressive symptoms.

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Figures

Fig. 1.
Fig. 1.
Cholesky decomposition for obsessive–compulsive disorder symptoms (OCS) and depressive symptoms at time 1 and time 2 in the adolescent sample. The first factor for additive genetic effects (A) accounts for the genetic variance that is common to all four variables. The second factor accounts for the remaining three variables not accounted for by the first factor, and so on. The last factor accounts for the remaining variance in the final variable that is not shared with any other variable in this model.
Fig. 2.
Fig. 2.
Cross-lag model of the standardized cross-sectional and longitudinal phenotypic associations between obsessive–compulsive disorder symptoms (OCS) and depressive symptoms in the adolescent twin sample. The longitudinal path coefficients were controlled for the effects of depressive symptoms at time 1 and OCS at time 1, and for sibling relatedness. Values in parentheses are 95% confidence intervals. * p < 0.05, ** p < 0.01.
Fig. 3.
Fig. 3.
Standardized unsquared path estimates of additive genetic (A), shared environmental (C) and non-shared environmental (E) factors for the bivariate model of the association between obsessive–compulsive disorder symptoms (OCS) and depressive symptoms for three different age groups (from left to right: time 1 of the adolescent sample; time 2 of the adolescent sample; adult sample). Given are the genetic (rA), shared environmental (rC) and non-shared environmental (rE) correlations between OCS and depressive symptoms. Values in parentheses are 95% confidence intervals.
Fig. 4.
Fig. 4.
Results from the Cholesky decomposition examining the longitudinal associations between obsessive–compulsive disorder symptoms (OCS) and depressive symptoms in the adolescent sample. The values presented are the standardized unsquared path estimates, with 95% confidence intervals in parentheses. (a) Associations between additive genetic factors (A) between the two traits. (b) Associations between shared environmental factors (C) between the two traits. (c) Path estimates of non-shared environmental factors (E).
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