Adult Mental Health Practitioner Engagement with Patient as Parent: Data from 15 Mental Health Trusts, 2018-2019

Parental mental illness is associated with poorer outcomes for offspring including elevated risk of intergenerational transmission of psychiatric symptoms. Ascertaining whether mental health service users have children is a clinical requirement in UK health services. Acknowledgement of a patient’s parenting role is necessary to enable engagement with their parenting experience and to facilitate support, both of which are associated with improved outcomes for the parent-child dyad. The aim was to investigate the practice of mental health practitioners working in UK adult mental health services with regard to the following: Ascertaining whether patients have children; engagement with the parenting role of patients; engagement with the construct of ‘think patient as parent’. A survey of 1178 adult mental health multi-disciplinary practitioners working in 15 mental health trusts in England revealed that 25 per cent of practitioners did not routinely ascertain whether patients had dependent children. Less than half of practitioners engaged with the parenting experience or the potential impact of parental mental health on children.