ABSTRACT
Parental mental illness (PMI) is a growing area of concern for mental health and social care researchers and services. One of the most important factors establishing it as a serious public health priority is its high prevalence. In the UK, between 10 per cent and 23 per cent of children live in a household in which a parent has a mental illness (Falkov 2011; Maybery et al. 2009). Fifteen per cent of dual-parent families and 20 per cent of single-parent families have a parent with a mental illness (Cleaver et al. 1999), and a study in the US indicates that around 68 per cent of women and 55 per cent of men with psychiatric disorders are parents at any given time (Nicholson et al. 2004). The stress of parenting itself is in fact liable to increase risk of serious psychiatric symptoms, especially in those caring for multiple young children (Oyserman et al. 2000). In a recent audit of mental health services in one county in the UK, it was found that around 60 per cent of children and young people accessing child and adolescent mental health services were children of parents with mental illness (CoPMI) and that almost 40 per cent of patients in adult mental health services
(AMHS) had dependent children (Gatsou et al. 2016). It is therefore important that nurses and other professionals understand how PMI can affect children and young people and how they can help to safeguard the mental health and wellbeing of this group.
