Parental Loss in Homosexuals
P. A. P. MORAN 1 and
K. ABE 2
1 Professor of Statistics, institute of Advanced Studies, Australian National University, Box 4, G.P.O., Canberra, Australia
2 Department of Psychiatry, Osaka City University Hospital, Abenoku, Osaka, Japan
In 290 males admitted to the Bethlem Royal and Maudsley Hospitals in the period 1949-1960 who were diagnosed as suffering from "320.6 Pathological Personality, Sexual Deviation, Homosexuality", 42 had lost their fathers before reaching the age of 15. A method of estimating the expected amount of such loss from generation life tables is described and this expectation found to be 34.62. The increase is not statistically significant at the 5 per cent. level. It is concluded that increase in paternal loss is relatively unimportant as an aetiological factor compared with the increase in paternal age found in a previous paper.
Submitted on May 13, 1968
