Parent's mental illness linked to child death risk

By Amy Norton

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Children and young adults with a parent suffering from a serious mental illness may have an increased risk of dying by homicide or suicide, a large study suggests.

In a study that included more than 1 million Danish children and young adults, researchers found a link between parents' history of psychiatric hospitalization and the risk of their child dying from unnatural causes.

Children younger than 15 were up to 10 times more likely than others their age to fall victim to homicide, while older teens and young adults had an increased risk of suicide.

The reasons are not fully clear, and more research is needed to answer that question, the study authors report in the Archives of General Psychiatry.

Nonetheless, the current findings at least point up the "broader range of psychosocial problems" that can affect families in which a parent has a serious mental illness, according to study author Roger T. Webb, a research fellow at the University of Manchester in the UK.

At the same time, Webb stressed in comments to Reuters Health that the findings should not stigmatize parents with psychiatric disorders. Though their children had a relatively higher risk of homicide or suicide, he pointed out, only about 1 percent died of any cause during the study period.

The findings are based on information from Denmark's system of population registers. The researchers were able to track deaths and causes of death among nearly 1.4 million children and young adults born between 1973 and 1997, and link the information to records of psychiatric hospitalization among their parents.

They found that compared with other children younger than 15, those with a parent hospitalized for mental illness were 5 to 10 times more likely to die of homicide, depending on their age and which parent had the disorder. The highest risk was seen among preschool children whose father was hospitalized.

The researchers had no information on the perpetrator in these cases, and it would be wrong to assume that the parents themselves harmed the children, Webb said.

He and his colleagues speculate that these children might have been more likely to live in dangerous neighborhoods, for instance, or to be around other "potential perpetrators," such as relatives or friends of the family.

In contrast to the case with younger children, older teenagers and young adults were not at higher homicide risk, the study found. However, they were 2 to 3 times more likely to commit suicide than their peers whose parents had no history of psychiatric hospitalization.

"The elevated risk of suicide among young adults is likely to be partially explained by the early development of mental illness among offspring of mentally ill parents," Webb explained, though he noted that the study did not assess this specifically.

The findings could have a number of potential implications, according to Webb -- one being that family-based therapies should be further developed and offered to families affected by a parent's mental illness.

SOURCE: Archives of General Psychiatry, March 2007.