| Autor: |
Demange PA; Department of Biological Psychology, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, The Netherlands.; Research Institute LEARN!, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Amsterdam, the Netherlands.; Amsterdam Public Health Research Institute, Mental Health, Amsterdam, the Netherlands.; PROMENTA Research Center, Department of Psychology, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway., Boomsma DI; Department of Biological Psychology, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, The Netherlands.; Amsterdam Reproduction & Development Research Institute, Amsterdam, the Netherlands., van Bergen E; Department of Biological Psychology, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, The Netherlands.; Research Institute LEARN!, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Amsterdam, the Netherlands.; Amsterdam Public Health Research Institute, Mental Health, Amsterdam, the Netherlands., Nivard MG; Department of Biological Psychology, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, The Netherlands. |
| Abstrakt: |
We investigate the causal relationship between educational attainment (EA) and mental health using two research designs. First, we compare the relationship between EA and 18 psychiatric diagnoses within sibship in Dutch national registry data (N=1.7 million), thereby controlling for unmeasured familial factors. Second, we apply two-sample Mendelian Randomization, which uses genetic variants related to EA or psychiatric diagnosis as instrumental variables, to test whether there is a causal relation in either direction. Our results suggest that lower levels of EA causally increase the risk of MDD, ADHD, alcohol dependence, GAD and PTSD diagnoses. We also find evidence of a causal effect of ADHD on EA. For schizophrenia, anorexia nervosa, OCD, and bipolar disorder, results were inconsistent across the different approaches, highlighting the importance of using multiple research designs to understand complex relationships such as between EA and mental health. |
