Although the high risk offspring showed an increased OR for developing an Anxiety Disorder in childhood (10.46), the presence of Anxiety Disorders in childhood did not predict later development of substance use disorder diagnoses. This is in contrast to findings of (Hofmann et al 2009) reporting on findings from the National Comorbidity Survey in which anxiety disorders were associated with increased odds for development of substance use disorders. The present results may differ from the Hoffman et al (2009) study because the present study utilized individuals selected for a high degree of familial loading for AD. Because familial risk is such an important predictor of young adult outcome, the effect of Anxiety Disorders of childhood may not have been manifest. While presence of Anxiety Disorders of childhood did not increase the odds for developing a substance use disorder by young adulthood in the present study, presence of MDD did elevate the OR over two-fold. Other studies have reported that depression during adolescence is concurrently associated with increased substance use (Needham, 2007) and longitudinally predicts increased use in young adulthood (Crum et al 2008; Marmorstein 2009a).
