Children of Parents With Serious Mental Illness: With Whom Do They Grow Up? A Prospective, Population-Based Study.
To provide an overview of living arrangements during childhood for children of parents with schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and depression.



Information was obtained from Danish registers on children's addresses and used to calculate the proportion living in different household living arrangements. The study was conducted as a prospective, register-based cohort study covering all children in the entire Danish population born after 1982 (N = 1,823,625) and their parents with a diagnosis of schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, depression, or none of these disorders. Regression analyses were performed assessing the risk of dissolution of the conjugal family.



Children's living arrangements were characterized by fewer nuclear families and more single-parent-headed households when parents had serious mental illness (SMI). From birth, 15% to 20% of children lived with a single mother with SMI. Conjugal families were dissolved at higher rates if a parent had SMI, especially if the mother (incidence rate ratio 2.98; 95% CI 2.80-3.17) or the father (incidence rate ratio 2.60; 95% CI 2.47-2.74) had schizophrenia. Risks for family dissolution varied greatly with parents' socioeconomic position in all diagnostic groups.



Parents' SMI affects children's family living arrangements because fewer children live with both parents and more children live with a single parent or are separated from both parents. Family cohesion seems especially difficult to maintain when parents have schizophrenia.
Copenhagen University Hospital, Mental Health Centre Copenhagen, Mental Health Services, Capital Region of Denmark, and the Lundbeck Foundation Initiative for Integrative Psychiatric Research, iPSYCH, Copenhagen, Denmark. Electronic address: Anne.ranning@regionh.dk.
Anne
A
Ranning
Aarhus University, the National Center for Register-based Research, Aarhus, Denmark, and the Lundbeck Foundation Initiative for Integrative Psychiatric Research, iPSYCH.
Thomas
T
Munk Laursen
Copenhagen University Hospital, Mental Health Centre Copenhagen, Mental Health Services, Capital Region of Denmark, and the Lundbeck Foundation Initiative for Integrative Psychiatric Research, iPSYCH, Copenhagen, Denmark; Center for Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Capital Region, Copenhagen.
Anne
A
Thorup
Copenhagen University Hospital, Mental Health Centre Copenhagen, Mental Health Services, Capital Region of Denmark, and the Lundbeck Foundation Initiative for Integrative Psychiatric Research, iPSYCH, Copenhagen, Denmark.
Carsten
C
Hjorthøj
Copenhagen University Hospital, Mental Health Centre Copenhagen, Mental Health Services, Capital Region of Denmark, and the Lundbeck Foundation Initiative for Integrative Psychiatric Research, iPSYCH, Copenhagen, Denmark.
Merete
M
Nordentoft
D000293:Adolescent; D001714:Bipolar Disorder / Q000453:epidemiology; D002648:Child; D002668:Child Rearing; D016241:Child of Impaired Parents / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D003718:Denmark / Q000453:epidemiology; D003866:Depressive Disorder / Q000453:epidemiology; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D011446:Prospective Studies; D012042:Registries / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D012559:Schizophrenia / Q000453:epidemiology; D015406:Single Parent / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*
affective disorders; conditions of upbringing; family living arrangements; parental mental illness; schizophrenia