Siribaddana Sisira H, Ball Harriet A, Hewage Suwin N, Glozier Nick, Kovas Yulia, Dayaratne Dark, Sumathipala Athula, McGuffin Peter, Hotopf Matthew
Sri Lanka Twin Registry, Institute of Research and Development, Battaramulla, Sri Lanka.
BMC Psychiatry. 2008 Jun 27;8:49. doi: 10.1186/1471-244X-8-49.
The Sri Lankan twin registry is one of the first to be established in a developing country, and its design has ensured sampling from a wide range of environmental conditions. It thus has great potential to examine environmental and genetic influences on diverse phenotypes, including psychiatric disorders, in the context of a diversity of environmental exposures, which may not have been fully explored in previous twin studies in developed countries. This paper presents the rationale for the study, describes its context, and the methods for twin ascertainment and data collection.
A population-based twin register was established in the Colombo district of Sri Lanka using infrastructure designed to periodically update the electoral register. We invited a subsample from this register to participate in the project on common mental disorders, using random ascertainment. A separate non-twin sample was randomly selected from the geographical areas where twins were found. Home interviewers collected diagnostic information on common mental disorders, as well as environmental exposures including life events, socio-economic conditions, and the impact of the civil war and the Tsunami of 2004.
We identified 19,302 individuals in the creation of the population based twin register. We randomly selected a subsample, of whom 4,387 were eligible to participate and 4,024 agreed to be interviewed (including data on 1,954 complete pairs of twins and 5 sets of triplets). Those who refused consent had a similar mean age and sex ratio to those who were interviewed. We invited 2,485 singletons to participate and 2,019 were interviewed.
Initial exploration of the data suggests the samples are very representative of the Colombo district of Sri Lanka, so we have created a unique resource for understanding the influences on mental disorders in developing countries, and to compare to the influences found in developed countries.
斯里兰卡双胞胎登记处是发展中国家最早设立的此类登记处之一，其设计确保了从广泛的环境条件中进行抽样。因此，在各种环境暴露的背景下，它有很大潜力研究环境和基因对包括精神疾病在内的多种表型的影响，而这在发达国家以往的双胞胎研究中可能尚未得到充分探索。本文阐述了该研究的基本原理，描述了其背景情况以及双胞胎确定和数据收集的方法。
利用旨在定期更新选民登记册的基础设施，在斯里兰卡科伦坡地区建立了一个基于人群的双胞胎登记处。我们通过随机抽样，从该登记处邀请了一个子样本参与常见精神障碍项目。从发现双胞胎的地理区域中随机选取了一个单独的非双胞胎样本。家庭访员收集了关于常见精神障碍的诊断信息，以及包括生活事件、社会经济状况以及内战和2004年海啸影响等环境暴露信息。
在创建基于人群的双胞胎登记处时，我们识别出了19302人。我们随机选取了一个子样本，其中4387人有资格参与，4024人同意接受访谈（包括1954对完整双胞胎和5组三胞胎的数据）。拒绝同意的人与接受访谈的人平均年龄和性别比例相似。我们邀请了2485名单身人士参与，2019人接受了访谈。
对数据的初步探索表明，这些样本非常具有斯里兰卡科伦坡地区的代表性，因此我们创建了一个独特的资源，用于了解发展中国家对精神障碍的影响，并与发达国家发现的影响进行比较。
