American Journal of Epidemiology Advance Access published online on September 17, 2007
American Journal of Epidemiology, doi:10.1093/aje/kwm254
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ORIGINAL CONTRIBUTION |
Depressive Symptoms in Adults Separated from Their Parents as Children: A Natural Experiment during World War II
1 Department of Psychology, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland
2 National Public Health Institute, Helsinki, Finland
3 Department of Public Health, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland
Correspondence to Dr. Katri Räikkönen, Department of Psychology, University of Helsinki, P.O. Box 9, Siltavuorenpenger 20 R, Helsinki FI-00014, Finland (e-mail: katri.raikkonen{at}helsinki.fi).
Received for publication November 2, 2006. Accepted for publication March 29, 2007.
Despite the significance of childhood trauma for later life, there is little evidence on the long-term consequences of parent-child separation. World War II created a unique natural experiment that allowed the authors to test whether 1) evacuation to temporary foster care unaccompanied by either parent and 2) separation from the father because of his military service predicted depressive symptoms later on. Members of the Helsinki 1934–1944 Birth Cohort (n = 1,658) filled out the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) at the ages of 61.6 (standard deviation: 2.9) and 63.4 (standard deviation: 2.9) years. The mean of the two BDI scores was used as the dependent variable. The data on separation experiences were extracted from the Finnish National Archives and from a survey among the participants. Former evacuees (n = 410) reported 20% (95% confidence interval: 8.7, 33.1) more severe depressive symptoms, and the odds ratio was 1.7 (95% confidence interval: 1.1, 2.6) for having at least mild (BDI score: 
10) symptoms over time compared with those who were not separated. Those separated from their father because of the father's military assignment (n = 744) did not differ from those who were not separated.
cohort studies; depression; life change events; object attachment; parent-child relations; psychology; war
Abbreviations: BDI, Beck Depression Inventory; CI, confidence interval; SD, standard deviation
Editor's note: An invited commentary on this article appears on page 000, and the authors' response is published on page 000.
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