Identifying and supporting children of mentally ill parents within adult mental health services

Abstract

BackgroundStudies have shown that implementing a change of practice in adult mental health care to identify and support children of mentally ill parents is challenging, even though the risk of transgenerational transmission of socioemotional problems and psychopathology has been thoroughly demonstrated the last decade.AimsThe current presentation describes the existing practice of identifying and supporting children of mentally ill parents within adult mental health services. The study was conducted after Norwegian health legislation had been changed to make these tasks mandatory. The effort included implementation of two interventions; Family Assessment, an intervention for practitioners to increase identification of patients who are also parents and their children, and child talks, an intervention designed to provide support for parents and children within the participating hospital.MethodThe sample included mental health professionals in a large university hospital in Northern Norway, who responded to a web-based survey on the routines of the services, attitudes within the workforce capacity, worker's knowledge on the impact of parental mental illness on children, knowledge on legislation concerning children of patients, and demographic variables. Register data from the Electronic Patient Journals (EPJ) was analyzed to assess whether or not the self-reported routines match the reality in the clinic.DiscussionThe prospects of clinical change will be discussed in general, as well as to which extent the two implemented interventions have contributed to changes in the clinical practice, workforce knowledge and attitudes in the participating hospital.Disclosure of interestThe author has not supplied his declaration of competing interest.