Abstract
This review will provide a concise description of mental health problems in parents of children with a (non-syndromic) congenital heart disease (CHD) during different stressful periods. Predictors of these problems and also implications for clinical practice will be mentioned. Having a child with CHD can be very stressful for parents, who have to face overwhelming emotions and also extra physical, financial, and other practical challenges. Parental distress has been reported in 30–80% of parents and appears not to be related to severity of CHD. Parental mental health, parenting, the parent–child relationship, and parental quality of life can all be affected. Parents, and especially mothers, are at risk of psychological distress, anxiety, depression, somatization, hopelessness, and posttraumatic stress symptoms, which in turn may influence mother’s responsiveness. In the long term, the majority of parents adapt successfully to living with a child with CHD, but approximately 40% report a need for psychosocial care. These families may be helped by early psychosocial interventions to alleviate stress and reduce children’s emotional and behavioral problems. A holistic approach to early psychosocial interventions should aim at improving coping and enhance parenting. During routine medical checkups, medical professionals should ask about parental stress, family functioning, and psychosocial functioning of the child and, when needed, adequate psychosocial care should be provided.
Highlights
36,000 infants (1% of total live births) are born with a congenital heart disease (CHD) in the USA each year (1)
A recent systematic review revealed that up to 30% of parents of children with critical CHD have posttraumatic stress (PTS) symptoms, 25–50% of them reported symptoms of depression and/or anxiety and 30–80% severe psychological distress, shortly after children’s cardiac surgery (5)
The high prevalence of traumatic stress of parents in this study is related to the multiple stressors experienced by them, including the CHD diagnosis received after birth of their infant and the life-threatening nature of hypoplastic left heart syndrome (HLHS), the ICU environment, and surgery
Summary
This review will provide a concise description of mental health problems in parents of children with a (non-syndromic) congenital heart disease (CHD) during different stressful periods. Predictors of these problems and implications for clinical practice will be mentioned. The majority of parents adapt successfully to living with a child with CHD, but approximately 40% report a need for psychosocial care. These families may be helped by early psychosocial interventions to alleviate stress and reduce children’s emotional and behavioral problems. Medical professionals should ask about parental stress, family functioning, and psychosocial functioning of the child and, when needed, adequate psychosocial care should be provided
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