Psychiatric disorders show phenotypic as well as genetic overlaps. There are however also marked developmental changes throughout childhood. We investigated the extent to which, for a full range of early childhood psychopathology, a general “p” factor was explained by genetic liability, as indexed by multiple different psychiatric polygenic risk scores (PRS) and whether these relationships altered with age. The sample was a UK, prospective, population-based cohort with psychopathology data at age 7 (N = 8161) and age 13 (N = 7017). PRS were generated from large published genome-wide association studies. At both ages, we found evidence for a childhood “p” factor as well as for specific factors. Schizophrenia and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) PRS were associated with this general “p” factor at both ages but depression and autism spectrum disorder (ASD) PRS were not. We also found some evidence of associations between schizophrenia, ADHD and depression PRS with specific factors, but these were less robust and there was evidence for developmental changes.

精神疾病表现出表型和遗传重叠。然而，整个童年时期也有显着的发展变化。我们调查了对于各种早期儿童精神病理学，一般“p”因素在多大程度上可以通过遗传责任来解释，由多个不同的精神病多基因风险评分 (PRS) 索引，以及这些关系是否随着年龄而改变。样本是一个英国、前瞻性、基于人群的队列，具有 7 岁（N = 8161）和 13 岁（N = 7017）的精神病理学数据。PRS 是从已发表的大型全基因组关联研究中产生的。在这两个年龄段，我们都发现了儿童“p”因素以及特定因素的证据。精神分裂症和注意力缺陷/多动障碍 (ADHD) PRS 在两个年龄都与这种一般的“p”因素相关，但抑郁症和自闭症谱系障碍 (ASD) PRS 则不相关。我们还发现了一些证据表明精神分裂症、多动症和抑郁症 PRS 与特定因素之间存在关联，但这些证据不太可靠，并且有证据表明发育变化。