Table 1.

Select Studies of the Association Between Parental Substance Use and Child Vulnerabilities

Source	Construct	Participants	Procedure	Findings	Weaknesses	Strengths
Ozkaragoz, Satz, & Noble (1997)	Cognitive Functioning	184 10–14 year-old boys whose fathers were actively alcoholic, recovering alcoholic, or social drinkers; boys' overall IQ was controlled for in analyses	Fathers completed diagnostic assessments; children completed neuropsychological measures of cognitive and emotional functioning and general intelligence	Boys with active alcoholic fathers performed worse than boys with fathers who were social drinkers on general intellectual functioning and tasks of visuospatial skills, memory, and attention; no significant differences were found in these same measures between sons of recovering alcoholics and sons of social drinkers	Sample only included male children; other potential environmental and genetic explanatory factors were not explored; did not control for parental and child comorbid psychopathology	Structured diagnostic instruments were used; analyses controlled for potential confounds; subgroups of boys were identified based on fathers' type of alcoholism
Zucker, Wong, Puttler, &Fitzgerald (2003)	Academic Functioning	303 3–5 year-old boys (at time 1) and their mothers and fathers followed for 9 years; families were intact; parents included those with and without diagnoses of Alcohol Abuse/ Dependence, Antisocial Personality Disorder, and a control group without psychopathology; boys were matched on age	Longitudinal design; parents completed the DIS for themselves and measures of behavior and temperament for their sons; children completed measures of intellectual functioning, academic achievement, and self-esteem	Boys with high parental psychopathology performed worse on arithmetic in middle childhood and reading in late childhood compared to boys from low parental psychopathology; during early adolescence, vulnerable boys (high parental psychopathology and low child adaptation) scored lower than nonchallenged boys (normal child adaptation under low parental psychopathology) and resilient boys (high child adaptation under high parental psychopathology) in reading and spelling, and lower than nonchallenged boys in arithmetic; resilient boys scored almost as well as nonchallenged boys in reading and spelling	Sample only included male children; assessment of academic achievement was limited to reading, arithmetic, and spelling; explanatory mechanisms were not identified; genetic factors were not considered	Structured diagnostic instruments were used; both mothers' and fathers' psychopathology was assessed; controlled for potential confounds; longitudinal design; level of family adversity, parental alcoholism and antisocial personality were measured; resilient children were included in sample
Hussong, Flora, Curran, Chassin, & Zucker (2008) Hussong, Wirth, Edwards, Curran, Chassin, & Zucker (2007)	Emotional and Social Functioning	811–991 (across two community samples) 2–17-year-old children of alcoholic parents; included mothers and fathers; a control group was matched on child gender, age, ethnicity, and SES; integrative data analysis was used to merge samples	Longitudinal design; parents completed the DIS and reported problem drinking, depression, and antisocial behavior; mothers, fathers, and children all completed measures assessing children's internalizing and externalizing symptoms (CBCL and Youth Self Report)	Children with only one alcoholic parent (compared to those with two) showed lower rates of problem behavior; for externalizing behavior this effect was seen in adolescence only; for internalizing, this effect was seen across development but was only true for girls; comorbid parental alcoholism with depression or antisocial behavior further increased risk for COAs' symptoms	Possible bias in parents' report of children's behavior; unable to parse environmental versus genetic risk; assessment did not capture children's level of exposure to parental depression, alcoholism, and antisocial behavior	Direct interviews conducted with both parents and children; included community samples with matched control-group; longitudinal design; large age range; large sample size and high statistical power; use of integrative data analysis
Hussong, Bauer, & Chassin (2008)	Substance Use	Community sample of 131 11–16-year-old (at time 1) children of alcoholic parents and 83 matched controls; children were followed across 5 time points (mean age 23.5); adolescents who reported alcohol use initiation were retained for analyses	Longitudinal design; parents reported onset and frequency of drinking, completed the DIS, and reported on problem drinking, depression, and antisocial behavior, parents completed the CBCL to report on adolescents' externalizing symptoms; alcohol/drug use disorders were assessed using the DIS	COAs progressed more quickly from the point of drinking initiation to alcohol and drug use disorders, and this risk existed after controlling for age of drinking initiation and did not differ by gender; families with two alcoholic parents showed greater risk for accelerated progression from alcohol use to disorder, and COAs whose parents also exhibited co-occurring psychopathology also evidenced stronger telescoping effects than those whose alcoholic parents did not show comorbidity	Small sample sizes of subgroups for various analyses may have resulted in limited statistical power; did not assess disorder beyond young adulthood	Direct interviews conducted with both parents and children; included a community sample with a matched control-group; longitudinal design from adolescence through young adulthood

Note: SUD= substance use disorders; COAs = children of alcoholic parents; DIS = Diagnostic Interview Schedule; CBCL = Child Behavior Checklist.