The needs of children who have parents suffering from severe mental disorders

Abstract

Objective

Mental illness in parents is a biological and environmental risk factor to which young people are exposed. Living with a parent suffering from a mental disorder may have a variety of detrimental consequences, including: (a) the reversal of caregiving (“parentification”); (b) the exposure to an adverse environment, where developmental needs of the child (emotional and practical) might be repeatedly neglected (lack of communication, high expressed emotion, etc.); (c) stigma and discrimination. We will provide a review of needs of these children and of possible interventions.

Methods

Systematic searches located studies reporting and assessing met and unmet needs of these children.

Results

Young people living in such families often have problems of internalizing and externalizing symptoms, cognitions of shame, guilt, and loneliness, perceptions of lacking social support and social acceptance. Children who have mentally ill parents are up to two and a half times more likely to experience poorer mental health outcomes than their peers. Compared to peers, children of parents with mental disorders are also at risk of poorer intellectual and social outcomes, of affect dysregulation, of behavioral problems, of impaired attention and reduced overall adaptive functioning, of higher rates of substance abuse and multiple diagnosis and finally of low occupational status, health risk behaviour and antisocial behavior.

Conclusions

Given the high toll paid by children having parents suffering from severe mental disorders, it is urgent to develop, test and implement structured programmes to help these children cope with stressful circumstances and improve their resilience.

Disclosure of interest

The authors have not supplied their declaration of competing interest.