Partners of people with schizophrenia often have a psychiatric disorder

Article written by Gary Finnegan.

It is well-established that the children of people with serious mental health issues can be affected by their parents’ illness. Now new research has showed that among partners of people with schizophrenia and bipolar disorders, half are themselves burdened by psychological issues. This can put added strain on family life and children’s wellbeing, say the authors of a major Danish study.

The iPSYCH project found that while 18 percent of parents in a control group had mental health disorders, this rose to almost 50% among parents who had children with someone affected by schizophrenia or bipolar disorder. The results stem from The Danish High-Risk and Resilience Study, which is part of iPSYCH, and included 872 parents who had a seven-year-old child at the time of the study.  

‘In the Danish registers we used, each child only had one parent registered with a mental disorder, but the diagnostic interview carried out as part of our study showed that almost half of the partners also fulfilled the criteria for such a disorder. In addition, the partners had a lower functional level compared to the control group,’ said Dr Aja Neergaard Greve, the psychology behind the study.

‘The most frequent diagnosis among the partners was depression. We were surprised that six per cent of the partners to people with schizophrenia also met the diagnostic criteria for schizophrenia themselves. In the control group, it was only one per cent,’ she said.

The results, which have been published in the scientific journal Schizophrenia Bulletin, point to additional risk factors for children who grow up in families with a parent with schizophrenia or bipolar disorder.

‘When one of the parents has a severe mental disorder, caring for the child will often be more dependent on the other parent, who perhaps also has much of their attention directed towards the ill parent,’ said Dr Neergaard Greve. ‘If the parent who we thought was healthy and well-functioning also in some cases has a mental disorder or has a lower functional level and is emotionally and practically burdened by the general family situation, then this can have significance for the whole family’s well-being.’

Children born to parents with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder have an increased risk of themselves developing mental disorders. In fact, familial risk is the highest known risk factor for later development of these disorders. If both parents have a mental disorder, the overall risk for the children increases.

‘This increased risk is both genetic and environmental. Cognitive functions such as intelligence are hereditary, but if the parents have cognitive difficulties there will also be an effect on the environment the child grows up in if the parents don’t have the opportunity to create good stable routines and predictability or to stimulate the child sufficiently,’ the author said.

The researchers will follow the families from the study up through the child’s upbringing and hope to learn more about how the children develop, as well as which factors have greatest importance for the well-being of the families.