Mental Health News – Study found that children living with a parent who has depression tend to develop depression and not achieve educational success.
In a recent study, researchers at Swansea University (U.K) examined the data from the Secure Anonymised Information Linkage (SAIL) databank assembled as part of the Born in Wales Study. They used information on children born in Wales (1987-2018), their parents – or stable, adult male figures in the same household.
According to the study findings, 34.5% of mothers and 18% of fathers/stable men were diagnosed with depression. In offspring, 4.34% of all children, 2.85% of boys, and 5.89% of girls were diagnosed with depression. The research result showed that the children tend to develop depression if their mothers and fathers/stable man had depression before their birth, after their birth, both before and after their birth.
Researchers discovered that children with parents who had depression were more likely not to achieve milestones at the end of primary school. They identified a few other risk factors for children’s depression, including being female, their mother taking antidepressants, and having no stable man in the household.
“Working with families and treating parental depression (in dads as well as mums) is likely to have long-term benefits for children’s mental health and educational attainment,” said Sinead Brophy, lead author of the study published in the open-access journal PLOS ONE. Holistic approaches to the whole family’s well-being and depression can lead to positive outcomes for the children, he added.
To Know more You May Refer To:
Brophy, S., Todd, C., Rahman, M. A., Kennedy, N., & Rice, F. (2021). Timing of parental depression on risk of child depression and poor educational outcomes: A population based routine data cohort study from born in Wales, UK. https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.03.02.21252732
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