Family history and psychosocial background factors were studied in married patients with a DSM-III diagnosis of schizoaffective disorder (n = 17, partners n = 16), married patients with diabetes (n = 10, partners n = 10) and married healthy individuals (n = 8, partners n = 8). The two latter groups were comparison control groups matched for gender and age to the patients with schizoaffective disorder. Affective disorder, not particularly schizoaffective disorder, was more common in first- and tended to be more common in second-degree relatives of patients with schizoaffective disorder as compared with controls. Poor parental relations, especially to the father, during the formative years were prominent in patients with schizoaffective disorder as compared with the controls. The same patients also more often than others gave a report of sexual encroachment, inside or outside the family, and corporal punishment during the growing-up years.