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posted by janrinok on Tuesday April 08 2014, @03:35PM   Printer-friendly
from the one-two-three-five-eleventeen dept.

About a month ago a study (abstract) was published about how a father's age affects the psychiatric health of his children. Due to a misleading press release about the study's results, it was widely reported that children born to father over 45 years of age were 3.5 times more likely to have autism, 13 times more likely to have ADHD, 2 times more likely to have a psychotic disorder, 25 times more likely to have bipolar disorder, and 2.5 times more likely to have suicidal behavior or a substance abuse problem.

But statistical analysis is hard and non-intuitive, particularly for people who aren't expert statisticians. It turns out that the real-life rates of psychiatric problems are significantly less, putting this most recent study's results in line with those of previous related studies.

 
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  • (Score: 1) by lhsi on Tuesday April 08 2014, @05:11PM

    by lhsi (711) on Tuesday April 08 2014, @05:11PM (#28300) Journal

    There was a study posted here about the affect of maternal psychoses on children recently.
    http://soylentnews.org/article.pl?sid=14/04/02/231 7246 [soylentnews.org]
    It didn't cover paternal, but the conclusion was that children of mothers with bipolar disorder did not differ from the controls. Hopefully something else to not freak out about.