IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/cysrev/v119y2020ics0190740920320612.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

What do children know about their parent’s mental illness? A systematic review of international literature on children in families with mental illness

Author

Listed:
  • Cudjoe, Ebenezer
  • Chiu, Marcus Y.L.

Abstract

Research shows that children whose parents have mental illness are an “invisible” or “hidden” population because their voices are not heard and mental health systems often do not know how to respond to their needs. Meanwhile, many of these children are at an increased risk of poor outcomes such as low academic performance, poor social relationships and poor mental health. Evidence indicates that these children have a chance of overcoming adversities when they understand their parent’s mental illness, its impact and how to deal with stressful situations. Therefore, this systematic review was conducted to examine children’s knowledge regarding parental mental illness. A search through online databases including Sociological Abstracts, Scopus, PsycINFO, MEDLINE and CINAHL yielded 15 studies after going through screening procedures. Results of the study were generated through thematic analysis procedures. A major finding across the studies is that children do not have an adequate understanding of what goes on with their parent’s mental illness. This often leads to confusion, anxiety, fear, guilt, isolation and frustration. Consequently, there was a general consensus among children and professionals regarding the need for children to be informed about parental mental illness, albeit with a few reservations from parents on the matter. What seems to be lacking is specific information that could be appropriate for children owing to their unique circumstances when there is parental mental illness. Professionals should synchronize their services to the needs of these children by first giving voices to the child.

Suggested Citation

  • Cudjoe, Ebenezer & Chiu, Marcus Y.L., 2020. "What do children know about their parent’s mental illness? A systematic review of international literature on children in families with mental illness," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 119(C).
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:cysrev:v:119:y:2020:i:c:s0190740920320612
    DOI: 10.1016/j.childyouth.2020.105638
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0190740920320612
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.childyouth.2020.105638?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Grové, C. & Reupert, A. & Maybery, D., 2015. "Peer connections as an intervention with children of families where a parent has a mental illness: Moving towards an understanding of the processes of change," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 48(C), pages 177-185.
    2. Bale, Justine & Grové, Christine & Costello, Shane, 2020. "Building a mental health literacy model and verbal scale for children: Results of a Delphi study," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 109(C).
    3. Grove, Christine & Riebschleger, Joanne & Bosch, Annick & Cavanaugh, Daniel & van der Ende, Peter C., 2017. "Expert views of children's knowledge needs regarding parental mental illness," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 79(C), pages 249-255.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Schreier, Alayna & Stenersen, Madeline R. & Strambler, Michael J. & Marshall, Tim & Bracey, Jeana & Kaufman, Joy S., 2023. "Needs of caregivers of youth enrolled in a statewide system of care: A latent class analysis," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 147(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Power, Luke & Davidson, Gavin & Jacobs, Paula & McCusker, Pearse & McCartan, Claire & Devaney, John, 2024. "Identifying core measures to be used in mental health research with care experienced young people: A Delphi study," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 157(C).
    2. Graaf, Genevieve & Snowden, Lonnie, 2017. "The role of Medicaid home and community-based service policies in organizing and financing care for children with severe emotional disturbance," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 81(C), pages 272-283.
    3. Henderson, Linda & Grové, Christine & Lee, Felicia & Trainer, Louisa & Schena, Hannah & Prentice, Marcelle, 2020. "An evaluation of a dog-assisted reading program to support student wellbeing in primary school," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 118(C).
    4. Laletas, Stella & Khasin, Michelle, 2021. "Children of high conflict divorce: Exploring the experiences of primary school teachers," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 127(C).

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:cysrev:v:119:y:2020:i:c:s0190740920320612. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/childyouth .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.