Characteristics of parents with a mental illness and their minor children in a study sample from the Czech Republic: a cross-sectional study

BACKGROUND: The association between a parent's mental illness and the risk of mental disorders in the offspring is multifactorial. The aim of this study was to explore the characteristics of mentally ill parents and their minor children and to provide information on family influences among families who consented to participate in a cross-sectional study. Specifically, this study explores the sociodemographic data, diagnoses of mentally ill parents and their minor children, and the perceived quality of life of the children, assessed by both parents and children themselves. METHODS: Participants were 65 families with 100 children aged under 18, where one or both parents had a formal diagnosis of a mental disorder. We obtained a variety of sociodemographic and clinical data from the families/parents and their children and identified certain risk and protective characteristics. We analyzed the relationships between the observed measures (responses in questionnaires) and selected demographic and risk factors using a multivariable linear regression model. Normality of residuals was verified by the Shapiro-Wilk test. P-values < 0.05 were considered statistically significant. RESULTS: We found that a total of 31 children from 28 families already had an ICD-10 mental disorder diagnosis. Half of the parents lived with the child's other parent. Just over one half of the parents had been hospitalized in the past. Just under one quarter of the parents had experienced their own parents' mental illness. Over one half of the parents had informed their offspring about their psychiatric diagnosis. The greater the number of risk factors the family faced, the worse the children perceived their quality of life. The higher the net family income was, the better both children and parents perceived the children's physical well-being. CONCLUSIONS: Our findings highlight the need for targeted prevention for parents with mental illness and their children. Identification of adult patients who are parents is the starting point for reaching out to other family members, especially the most vulnerable, that is, the children. Targeted prevention can address multifactorial links, alleviate the impact of parental disorder on children and mitigate the risk of psychopathology in the offspring. TRIAL REGISTRATION: ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT05554458. Registered on 16 September 2022. Retrospectively registered.