[Child Protection in Families with Parental Mental Illness].

Abstract

Child Protection in Families with Parental Mental Illness Children and adolescents from families with parental mental illness face an increased risk to experience abuse, neglect and maltreatment. The effects of imminent, intermittent or chronic distress on the development of the child and to differentiate these from neglect or maltreatment are not easily assignable in such families. Questionnaires and diagnostic instruments can be supportive tools for professionals in hospitals and private practices to identify and differentiate between burdens of children and families and potential endangerment. Different instruments are presented for the assessment of child abuse: For professionals the Wahrnehmungsbogen für Kinderschutz (Thurn et al., 2017). As methods of screening at risk the Eltern-Belastungsbogen zur Kindeswohlgefährdung (Deegener, Spangler, Körner, Becker, 2009) and the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire (Wingenfeld et al., 2010). For the comprehensive assessment of abuse, we present the Maternal Interview Child Maltreatment (Cicchetti, Toth, Manly, 2003). The prevalence of mentally ill parents is presented based on two samples of patients attending the child protection outpatient clinic or and the trauma outpatient clinic of the Charité. In the child protection outpatient clinic 15.8 % of the mothers and 11.4 % of the fathers fulfilled criteria for psychiatric disorders. In the trauma outpatient clinic we diagnosed a parental mental disorder in 20 % of all cases. A fictitious case report reveals the emotional maltreatment of a child by its mentally ill mother, which suffers from an isolated delusional disorder. Empirical based classification tools seem to be very appropriate to ascertain physical and sexual maltreatment and child neglect in children of parents with mental disorders, as permanent or severe neglect is frequently detectable in these families.