Differences in Early Childhood Risk Factors for Juvenile-Onset and Adult-Onset Depression

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Abstract
SEVERAL FINDINGS suggest that juvenile- and adult-onset major depressive disorder (MDD) have distinct origins.1 First, although a significant proportion of depressed children become depressed adults,2,3 most individuals who experience depression in adulthood were not depressed as children.4 Second, juvenile-onset MDD is associated with increased risk for MDD among the first-degree relatives of depressed probands in clinical and community samples.4-8 Third, the children of depressed parents are at high risk for juvenile-onset MDD compared with the children of nondepressed parents, and this association is explained by early parental age at onset of MDD.9