Thursday, July 17, 2003

Report Shows Worrisome Link between Child and Parental Mental Health Problems; Strong Need for Family-Based Treatment
University of Washington press release via PR Newswire - "New research from the UW's Washington Kids Count project shows the emotional well-being of Washington children is strongly linked to their parents' mental health. In turn, parents' mental health is profoundly sensitive to their children's emotions and behavior. According to the Family Matters: Mental Health of Children and Parents report, elementary school children whose parents experienced symptoms of poor mental health or high parental aggravation (parents who feel stressed or angry toward their children) were almost five times as likely to have severe emotional and behavioral problems as children whose parents reported better mental health or only moderate aggravation. For adolescents, the risk of having severe emotional and behavioral problems was almost three times greater if a parent experienced symptoms of poor mental health or high levels of aggravation. Similarly, parents were about five times more likely to report mental health challenges if they had a child with severe emotional and behavioral problems. ... 'This research confirms what we know from working with children and families on a daily basis: that treating the family as a unit is critical in treating mental health problems,' said Scott Hanauer, director of Children's Home Society of Washington's Cobb Center for Youth..." See also, at the Human Services Policy Center web site, a policy brief based on the report and a bibliography of resources on parent and child mental health available on the web. Both documents are in Adobe Acrobat format.  
  

US HIV doctors not taking their patients' mental health seriously
Story at Aids Map - "The majority of HIV-positive American patients are not asked about their mental health by their HIV doctor, according to American research presented as a poster at the Second International AIDS Society Conference on HIV Pathogenesis and Treatment in Paris. The study involved interviews with 153 US HIV specialists and 253 of their patients. Although over 80% of doctors said that their patients’ mental health was a ‘high priority’ when making decisions about treatment, 62% of patients said that they had never been asked questions about their mental health by their doctor."