The phase-out of the intact family in a changing world: prevention and intervention for every child?

Abstract

Leafing through the last issues of European Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, you will find a remarkable number of original articles and editorials addressing mental health problems of children and adolescents in the context of psychiatric and/or social problems within the family as well as in combination with environmental factors outside the family. Also in the present issue, Knappe et al. [5] illustrate the family as an important context for cognitive, emotional and behavioral development by reviewing familial risk factors in social anxiety disorder. They highlight parental psychopathology and unfavorable family environment as promising targets for research on the associations and interactions of familial risk factors with the onset and course of social anxiety disorder. Additionally, they plead for more research in this area to get a valuable basis for targeted prevention and early intervention in adolescents and young adults at risk. The effectiveness of a preventive family intervention and a brief psychoeducational discussion with parents on children’s psychosocial symptoms and prosocial behavior is documented by the present findings of Solantaus et al. [7] in families with parental depression. Important questions on prevention and early intervention in children and adolescents at risk however are still unanswered. For example, would there be enough resources in view of the increasing rate of divorces in the European countries [1] and cumulating evidence that divorce is a risk factor for many psychopathologic conditions of the child [9]. Or to what extent can early interventions countervail the negative impact of so-called ‘non-intact’ families?