How accurately do adult sons and daughters report and perceive parental deaths from coronary disease?

Citation

Watt G, McConnachie A, Upton M, Emslie C & Hunt K (2000) How accurately do adult sons and daughters report and perceive parental deaths from coronary disease?. Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, 54 (11), pp. 859-863. https://doi.org/10.1136/jech.54.11.859

Abstract
Objectives-To describe how adult sons and daughters report and perceive parental deaths from heart disease. Design-Two generation family study. Setting-West of Scotland. Subjects-1040 sons and 1298 daughters aged 30-59 from 1477 families, whose fathers and mothers were aged 45-64 in 1972-76 and have been followed up for mortality over 20 years. Outcome-Perception of a ″family weakness″ attributable to heart disease. Results-26% of sons and daughters had a parent who had died of coronary heart disease (CHD). The proportion was higher in older offspring (+18% per 10 year age difference) and in manual compared with non-manual groups (+37%). Eighty nine per cent of parental deaths from CHD were correctly reported by offspring. Only 23% of sons and 34% of daughters with at least one parent who had died of CHD considered that they had a family weakness attributable to heart disease. Perceptions of a family weakness were higher when one or both parents had died of CHD, when parental deaths occurred at a younger age, in daughters compared with sons and in offspring in non-manual compared with manual occupations. Conclusions-Only a minority of sons and daughters with experience of a parent having died from CHD perceive this in terms of a family weakness attributable to heart disease. Although men in manual occupations are most likely to develop CHD, they are least likely to interpret a parental death from CHD in terms of a family weakness. Health professionals giving advice to patients on their familial risks need to be aware of the difference between clinical definitions and lay perceptions of a family history of heart disease.

Journal
Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health: Volume 54, Issue 11

People

Professor Kate Hunt

Professor, Institute for Social Marketing