scholarly journals Child Talks+: A New Intervention to Support Families Affected by Parental Mental Illness

Author(s):  
Karin T.M. van Doesum ◽  
Charlotte Reedtz ◽  
Camilla Lauritzen

Child Talks+ is a preventive intervention developed with the aim to assist mental health professionals in offering support to children of parents with mental health problems and/ or addiction problems. This brief report presents the intervention, which can be adopted by mental health workers, social workers and other healthcare professionals who are in contact with patients who are parents. Parents and their children are entitled to receive psychoeducation about the parents’ mental health problems. Interventions to provide knowledge and support will enable parents and children to have a mutual understanding of the situation in the family and possible changes in parental behavior. Common grounds can make it easier for the family to speak openly about mental health problems within the family. The intervention aims to enhance parenting communication skills. After completing the intervention, patients should feel more equipped to talk with the children about their mental health problems, as well as listen to the children’s needs and experiences.

2018 ◽  
Vol 42 (5) ◽  
pp. 200-205 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexander Galloway ◽  
Billy Boland ◽  
Gareth Williams

SummaryPoverty is strongly associated with mental illness. Access to state benefits can be a lifeline for people with mental health problems in times of hardship and can assist them on their journey of recovery. However, benefit application processes can discriminate against those with mental illness and can result in individuals unjustly missing out on support. Clinical evidence from mental health professionals can ameliorate these challenges and ensure that people get access to financial help.Declaration of interestDr Billy Boland is on the advisory board of the Money and Mental Health Policy Institute.


Author(s):  
Gopal K Singh ◽  
Hyunjung Lee ◽  
Romuladus E. Azuine

Background: The COVID-19 pandemic has had a substantial adverse impact on workers’ employment and physical and mental health. However, job losses, job-related household income shocks, and their related physical and mental health problems have not been well-documented. Using temporal, nationally representative data, this study examines inequalities in job-related income losses and their resultant health impact among US workers aged 18-64 years in different job sectors during the pandemic. Methods: Using April, August, and December 2020 rounds of the US Census Bureau’s Household Pulse Survey (N=56,156, 82,173, and 51,500), job-related income losses among workers in various job sectors and associated impacts on self-assessed health, depression, anxiety, worry, and lack of interest were analyzed by multivariable logistic regression. Results: In December 2020, 64.0% of self-employed and 66.3% of unemployed adults reported that they or someone in their household experienced a loss of employment income since the start of the pandemic in March 2020. This percentage was the lowest for the public sector (35.2%) and non-profit-sector (45.0%) workers. Job/income losses increased by 26% between April and December for workers in the private and non-profit sectors. Prevalence of fair/poor overall health, serious depression, serious anxiety, serious worry, and serious lack of interest increased substantially during the pandemic for workers in all sectors, with the self-employed, those in the family business, and the unemployed experiencing the highest risk and those in the government/public and non-profit sectors experiencing the lowest risk of poor physical and mental health. Workers in all sectors reporting job-related income losses experienced approximately 2-to-4-fold higher odds of poor overall health, serious depression, serious anxiety, serious worry, and serious lack of interest, compared to public-sector workers with no job/income losses, controlling for covariates. Conclusion and Implications for Translation: Job-related income losses and prevalence of poor overall health and mental health among workers in all sectors increased markedly during the pandemic, with the self-employed, family business, and unemployed workers being especially vulnerable to poor health, depression, anxiety, and stress.   Copyright © 2021 Singh, et al. Published by Global Health and Education Projects, Inc. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 4.0) which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work, first published in this journal, is properly cited.


2020 ◽  
pp. 088626052093509 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rebecca E. Lacey ◽  
Laura D. Howe ◽  
Michelle Kelly-Irving ◽  
Mel Bartley ◽  
Yvonne Kelly

Previous research has demonstrated a graded relationship between the number of Adverse Childhood Experiences reported (an ACE score) and child outcomes. However, ACE scores lack specificity and ignore the patterning of adversities, which are informative for interventions. The aim of the present study was to explore the clustering of ACEs and whether this clustering differs by gender or is predicted by poverty. Data on 8,572 participants of the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC) were used. ALSPAC is a regionally representative prenatal cohort of children born between 1991 and 1992 in the Avon region of South-West England. ACEs included parental divorce, death of a close family member, interparental violence, parental mental health problems, parental alcohol misuse, parental drug use, parental convictions, and sexual, emotional, and physical abuse, between birth and 19 years. Latent class analysis was used to derive ACE clusters and associations between poverty, gender, and the derived classes tested using multinomial logistic regression. Five latent classes were identified: “Low ACEs” (55%), “Parental separation and mother’s mental health problems” (18%), “Parental mental health problems, convictions and separation” (15%), “Abuse and mental health problems” (6%), and “Poly adversity” (6%). Death of a close family member and sexual abuse did not cluster with other adversities. The clustering did not differ by gender. Poverty was strongly related to both individual ACEs and clusters. These findings demonstrate that ACEs cluster in specific patterns and that poverty is strongly related to this. Therefore, reducing child poverty might be one strategy for reducing ACEs.


2007 ◽  
Vol 22 (6) ◽  
pp. 541-545 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rakesh Kumar Chadda ◽  
Anil Malhotra ◽  
Nanaji Kaw ◽  
Jaspreet Singh ◽  
Hem Sethi

AbstractIntroduction:Events such as earthquakes are followed by significant psychiatric morbidity due to the enormous damage caused to life, health, property, and other resources in the affected area. In October 2005, a devastating earthquake occurred in Kashmir in India. A team of mental health professionals visited the earthquake stricken area to provide mental health services five weeks after of the event.Methods:The team conducted clinics at >30 sites in different villages in the area. This paper describes the mental health problems encountered in those communities.Results:All patients seen in the clinics had their houses destroyed by the earthquake.Nearly one-fourth had suffered serious physical injuries and 12% had lost one of their family members. Common psychiatric diagnoses included adjustment disorders (39.6%), depressive episode (22.6%), and other stress disorders (21.8 %). Only 10 (3.3%) patients were found to suffer from posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), though PTSD-like symptoms were reported by more than two-thirds of the patients.Conclusions:Adjustment disorders, depression, other stress reactions, and PTSD-like symptoms were the common mental health problems five to six weeks following an earthquake.


2018 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 4-7 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shiva Raj Mishra ◽  
Pratik Khanal ◽  
Vishnu Khanal

Conflict in Nepal seems never resolving and the current generation has grown up in the environment of armed and political conflict characterized by indiscriminate killing, violent demonstration and widespread hostility. Adding to agony, the April 2015 earthquake left two million homeless and the 2015 Indo-Nepal economic blockade has created hostility among different community ethnic groups. With such background, this commentary highlights issues related to conflict, disaster and their relation to mental health. We also identify some gaps in existing health system, medical education and current focus on preventive approach to mental health. Mental health policy was endorsed in 1996; however, the policy has never been implemented in the fullest sense. Psychiatric services are provided by tertiary hospitals with no linkage to community-level primary health care services. Medical training still lacks mental health training at basic cadres of health workers and only small number of seats is allocated for post-graduate degree. Nepal continue to experience conflicts and disasters possibly leading to an increased burden of mental health problems and its health system is further distressed by the increasing gaps in provision of mental health service. With the devastating effect of the April 2015 earthquake, there is even higher need of serious effort to treat and prevent mental health problems with evidence-though limited depicting increase in burden of mental health problems. The state should stop putting half-hearted response to mental health problems and put more effort on long-term sustainable and culturally suitable solutions.Keywords: conflict, mental health, Nepal


2016 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 46-51
Author(s):  
Basak Baglama

Understanding the needs of indivudals with mental disabilities is really important in terms of improving quality of life, intervention and promotion. Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-V) is widely used book for mental health professionals in order to make diagnosis. The present study discusses the usefulness of DSM in diagnosing mental health problems by emphasizing it’s advantages and criticisms. This study used document analysis method in order to provide an overview and discussion of recent literature regarding advantages and criticisms of DSM. Various issues have been discussed and conclusions have been made based on the literature review of this study. 


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