This longitudinal study examines the characteristics of children with psychiatrically disordered parents, relates child characteristics to parental diagnosis and environmental variables in the home and school, assesses ways in which the family is affected by and copes with the stresses of psychiatric disorder and hospitalization, and identifies developmental precursors specific to the onset of schizophrenia.

The original sample comprised 197 families, belonging to one of three groups: families with a schizophrenic parent (n=72), families with an affectively ill parent (n=53), and normal control families (n=52). Data were collected in five phases, initially when all the psychiatric patients were in acute stages of their disorders. The second phase of data collection assessed the patient's interepisodic adjustment. The third wave included data on the children, but was incomplete. In the fourth and fifth phases of the project, only the offspring are followed up.

Measures used include a semistructured diagnostic interview; Global Assessment Scale (GAS); the Current and Past Psychopathology Scales (CAPPS); a short form of the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI), the Mini-Mult; interviews with the patient's spouse; hospital case history; Mate Adjustment Form; Marital Adjustment Test; Devereux Elementary School Behavior Rating Scale (DESB); Pupil Evaluation Inventory; Schedule for Affective Disorders and Schizophrenia (SADS); Family Evaluation Form; Children's Report of Parental Behavior Inventory (CRPBI); Adjustment Scales for Sociometric Evaluation of Secondary School Students (ASSESS); School Behavior Rating Scale; and Hahnemann High School Behavior Rating Scale. The laboratory battery includes measures of intellectual functioning and distractibility.

It is expected that data collection will continue until the youngest children in the study reach their mid-thirties. The Murray Center has computer-accessible data from all five phases along with open-ended raw data from Phases IV and V.