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Educational achievements of children of parents with multiple sclerosis: A nationwide register-based cohort study

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Abstract

Little is known about the impact of parental multiple sclerosis (MS) on offspring’s educational attainment. The objective of the study was to examine educational achievements in offspring of parents with MS compared with matched children of parents without MS in a nationwide register-based cohort study. Children of all Danish-born residents with onset between 1950 and 1986 were identified by linking the Danish Multiple Sclerosis Registry with the Civil Registration System. Twins, children with MS, and emigrated persons were excluded. The reference cohort consisted of randomly drawn individuals from the Civil Registration System without parental MS matched 8:1 to the MS offspring by sex and year of birth. Information about education was linked to the cohorts from nationwide educational registries. We included 4177 children of MS parents and 33,416 reference persons. Children of MS parents achieved statistically significant higher average grades than the reference cohort in their final exam of basic school with a mean grade difference of 0.46 (95 % CI 0.22–0.69; p = 0.0002). We found no difference in achievement of educational level above basic school (OR 1.04; 95 % CI 0.98–1.10; p = 0.20). There was a trend toward more MS offspring attaining health-related educations (OR 1.10; 95 % CI 1.00–1.21; p = 0.06). In conclusion, children of MS parents showed a small advantage in grade point average in final examinations in basic school, and they more often tended toward health-related educations. This study revealed no negative consequences of parental MS on grades and highest educational level achieved.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Danish Multiple Sclerosis Center, Department of Neurology, Rigshospitalet, Blegdamsvej 9, 2100, Copenhagen, Denmark

    J. Y. Moberg, M. Magyari & P. Soelberg Sørensen

  2. University of Copenhagen, Norregade 10, 1165, Copenhagen, Denmark

    J. Y. Moberg & P. Soelberg Sørensen

  3. The Danish Multiple Sclerosis Registry, Rigshospitalet, Tagensvej 22, 2200, Copenhagen, Denmark

    M. Magyari & N. Koch-Henriksen

  4. Department of Clinical Epidemiology, Clinical Institute, University of Aarhus, Sdr. Skovvej 15, 9000, Aalborg, Denmark

    N. Koch-Henriksen

  5. National Institute of Public Health, University of Southern Denmark, Oster Farimagsgade 5A, 1353, Copenhagen, Denmark

    L. C. Thygesen & B. Laursen

Authors
  1. J. Y. Moberg
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  2. M. Magyari
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  3. N. Koch-Henriksen
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  4. L. C. Thygesen
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  5. B. Laursen
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  6. P. Soelberg Sørensen
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to J. Y. Moberg.

Ethics declarations

Ethics

The personal identification numbers from the various registers were encrypted by Statistics Denmark where the datasets were stored, and we linked the datasets using the encrypted personal identification numbers. The study was approved by The Danish Data Protection Agency for research and statistical usage [reference numbers 30-1141 and 2008-54-0482]. Ethical committee approval was not necessary by Danish law, since the study was entirely register-based and non-interventional.

Conflicts of interest

On behalf of all authors, the corresponding author states that there is no conflict of interest.

Funding

This work was supported by The Danish Multiple Sclerosis Society [grant numbers A25533 and A27983] and The Karen A. Tolstrup Foundation [grant number 300.106–008].

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Moberg, J.Y., Magyari, M., Koch-Henriksen, N. et al. Educational achievements of children of parents with multiple sclerosis: A nationwide register-based cohort study. J Neurol 263, 2229–2237 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00415-016-8255-4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00415-016-8255-4

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