According to researches, a child whose parent has schizophrenia has about a 10 percent chances of getting this diseases, while one in general the percentage is about 1 percent. Here’s an excerpt of a detailed discussion at Discovery Health:

Researches have shown that “multiple genes are involved in creating a predisposition to develop the disorder. In addition, factors such as prenatal difficulties like intrauterine starvation or viral infections, perinatal complications, and various nonspecific stressors, seem to influence the development of schizophrenia.”

There’s a lot of research in Schizophrenia, but it is not yet understood how the genetic predisposition is transmitted. Several regions of the human genome are being investigated to identify genes that may confer susceptibility for schizophrenia. The strongest evidence to date leads to chromosomes 13 and 6 but remains unconfirmed. Identification of specific genes involved in the development of schizophrenia will provide important clues into what goes wrong in the brain to produce and sustain the illness and will guide the development of new and better treatments. To learn more about the genetic basis for schizophrenia, the NIMH has established a Schizophrenia Genetics Initiative that is gathering data from a large number of families of people with the illness.