Children's Mental Health and Family Functioning in Rhode Island

Abstract

OBJECTIVES. Our objectives were to (a) estimate the prevalence of children's mental health problems, (b) assess family functioning, and (c) investigate the relationship between children's mental health and family functioning in Rhode Island. METHODS. From the 2003 National Survey of Children's Health, Rhode Island data for children 6 to 17 years of age were used for the analyses (N = 1326). Two aspects of family functioning measures, parental stress and parental involvement, were constructed and were examined by children's mental health problems, as well as other child and family characteristics (child's age, gender, race/ethnicity, special needs, parent's education, income, employment, family structure, number of children, and mother's general and mental health). Bivariate analyses and multivariate logistic regression were used to investigate the relationship. RESULTS. Among Rhode Island children, nearly 1 (19.0%) in 5 had mental health problems, 1 (15.6%) in 6 lived with a highly stressed parent, and one third (32.7%) had parents with low involvement. Bivariate analyses showed that high parental stress and low parental involvement were higher among parents of children with mental health problems than parents of children without those problems (33.2% vs 11.0% and 41.0% vs 30.3%, respectively). In multivariate logistic regression, parents of children with mental health problems had nearly 4 times the odds of high stress compared with parents of children without those problems. When children's mental health problems were severe, the odds of high parental stress were elevated. However, children's mental health was not associated with parental involvement. CONCLUSIONS. Children's mental health was strongly associated with parental stress, but it was not associated with parental involvement. The findings indicate that when examining the mental health issues of children, parental mental health and stress must be considered.

Mental Disorders in Self-Cutting Adolescents

“…Kim et al recently reported one in five (19%) communitydwelling children and adolescents aged 6-17 years to have mental health problems [25]. The similarity of these two figures supports our finding that mental disorders are nearly four times more common in currently self-cutting adolescents than among other adolescents.…”

Fifteen years after parental divorce: mental health and experienced life-events

“…This may indicate underlying stress maybe caused by, or causing the parental divorce. Findings indicate that when examining mental health issues of children, parental stress, among other issues must be considered (34). The children's own separation is perhaps an indication of difficulties in intimate relationships, more common among children from divorced than intact families (35).…”

Profile of subjective quality of life and its correlates in a nation-wide sample of high school students in an Arab setting using the WHOQOL-Bref

“…(i) one item on perceived quality of emotional relationship between the parents (response options: poor, fair, good, excellent) [6,9]; (ii) difficulty in psychosocial functioning. This was assessed by three items concerning difficulties being encountered as a result of various activities, viz: difficulty with studies (yes/no); difficulty relating with friends (yes/no); experiencing any other difficulties (yes/no); (iii) one item on perceived need for medical or psychological help (response options: no problem, need help only from friends, need medical/psychological help but not receiving it, need medical/psychological help and receiving it).…”

“…Of the parental factors, the consistent findings are that, poorer QOL was associated with parental low socio-economic status, low educational attainment, and divorce [3-5,7-10,15,44,45]. Of the socio-environmental factors, parental stress and the quality of emotional relationship between the parents were found to have long-term implications for the child's well-being [6,9,46,47]. Interestingly, children can reliably report on the quality of emotional relationship between their parents, while parents can predict children's response about parental relationship [46,48].…”