Divorce is common worldwide. It is also consequential. Marital status has been linked to a range of psychiatric morbidities. Much of the effort to understand the links between divorce and psychiatric disorders has focused on examining whether disorders are likely to cause divorce, or vice versa. Indeed, evidence supports the notion that the vulnerabilities and coping challenges associated with psychiatric disorders may over time undermine marital stability. Likewise, the stress associated with divorce procedures may facilitate the emergence of psychiatric disorders. Divorce has been shown to predict the onset of several disorders, including drug and alcohol abuse.
While divorce and psychological disorders may influence each other, a third causal possibility also exists: that certain genetic predispositions may contribute to both risk of divorce and risk of psychiatric morbidity
A recent (2024) study by Jessica Salvatore of Rutgers University and colleagues sought to test this hypothesis. The researchers collected data on individuals from Swedish population-based registers. The database consisted of all individuals born in Sweden between 1950 and 1980 to Swedish-born parents, followed through the end of 2018. This included over 2,800,000 individuals (mean age at end of follow-up: 51.7 years old; age range: 38 to 68). Data were obtained on patterns of family genetic risk scores (FGRSs)—personalized measures of genetic risk inferred from diagnoses in relatives regarding 10 psychiatric disorders (major depression, anxiety disorders, obsessive-compulsive disorder, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, anorexia nervosa, alcohol use disorder, drug use disorder, attention-deficit/hyperactive disorder, and autism spectrum disorder). Read the full Psychology Today article
Dr. Salvatore is a Co-Lead for NJ ACTS Genetically informed Research, Education, And Treatment