Parents’ depression may harm children’s health

	Tweet

When a parent suffers from depression, children are more likely to need costly health services like emergency room visits, and less likely to get preventive healthcare, according to a new study.

The findings bolster evidence that parents’ depression can take a toll on their children’s health. The effect can be seen as “one of the hidden costs of adult depression,” the researchers report in the journal Pediatrics. 

For the study, Dr. Marion Sills and her colleagues at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center in Denver reviewed data on nearly 70,000 infants, children and teenagers enrolled in a single healthcare insurance plan.

Between 1997 and 2002, they found, children with at least one parent diagnosed with depression were more likely than other children their age to have an emergency room visit, see a specialist or visit their doctor due to an illness.

On the other hand, teenagers with a depressed parent were less likely to make routine visits for a check-up and preventive care.

The study was not designed to answer the question of why parents’ depression affected their children’s healthcare, Sills told Reuters Health. She hopes these findings will spur more research into that question.

Some experts have called for pediatricians to screen children’s parents routinely for depression with standard questionnaires so that they can be referred for treatment. The current findings support that idea, according to Sills and her colleagues.

If research is any indication, however, few pediatricians currently ask parents about depression symptoms. In one study, Sills noted, only 8 percent of pediatricians said they routinely asked mothers about depressive symptoms.

Yet, Sills pointed out, research has shown that routine pediatrician visits can provide a good opportunity to briefly screening new mothers for postpartum depression.

Whether widespread parental screening would encourage more to seek depression treatment—and whether that would result in better healthcare for their children—is unknown. Those are questions future studies should address, Sills said.

SOURCE: Pediatrics, April 2007. 

RELATED STORIES:
Do Mentally Ill Patients’ Own Perceptions Affect Their Well-Being?   Researchers develop an integrated treatment for veterans with chronic pain and posttraumatic stress   Child antidepressant use increased in last decade   Guideline-Based Care Is Effective for Workers with Mental Health Problems   Brain waves show sound processing abnormalities in autistic children   Drug commonly used for alcoholism curbs urges of pathological gamblers   Alzheimer’s gene speeds memory declines before 60   Children with high risk for a sleep-related breathing disorder are more likely to have anxiety   Mood symptoms seen even with shorter IVF tactic   Burnout and mental distress strongly related to errors by US surgeons   First-time mothers at a greater risk of psychosis in the month following childbirth   Complex Gene Interactions Account for Autism Risk   Vacations bring good health and happiness for women   Child maltreatment and psychiatric impairment: Problems and prospects   Electroconvulsive Therapy For Depression - How It Works

Comments

[ + Post Your Own ]

Now you're in the public comment zone. What follows is not Armenian Medical Network's stuff; it comes from other people and we don't vouch for it. A reminder: By using this Web site you agree to accept our Terms of Service. Click here to read the Rules of Engagement.

There are no comments for this entry yet. [ + Comment here + ]