Back to Annual Meeting Page		American Public Health Association 133rd Annual Meeting & Exposition December 10-14, 2005 Philadelphia, PA

Abstract #112766

Carolyn H. Mason, MS, RN, Department of Nursing, Miami University, 1385 University Blvd., Hamilton, OH 45011-3399, 513-829-1065, masonch@muohio.edu and Sree Subedi, PhD, Sociology, Miami University, 1601 University Blvd., Hamilton, OH 45011.

The experience of those suffering from mental illness today is even more devastating when considering many of those with these illnesses are also parents. Of those diagnosed with a mental illness over half of men and two-thirds of women are parents. Over the last two decades much information has emerged concerning the factors that place children at high risk for developing a mental illness. One of the most powerful predictors is the existence of a parent with a mental illness. In addition, children of parents with mental illness have a higher risk of delayed or deviant development, and emotional and behavioral problems when compared to children from more stable, mentally healthy families. However, relatively few mental health agencies provide services targeted to both parents and their children as a unit. Services are most often fragmented and provided to parents and the children separately. This is due to the fact that parenting is rarely viewed as a mental health issue. While stressing the need for collaborative and comprehensive services for such families, this paper argues that nurses can play vital roles from assessment of needs, to intervention programs, to evaluation of care. Select successful family intervention programs are examined and a model based on these past programs that also includes and analyzes the significant role that nursing can play at all levels of care is presented.

Learning Objectives:

• •Analyze some of the short comings in services to parents with a mental illness and their children.
• •Identify some successful intervention programs and strategies.
• •Recognize the potential roles that nurses can play in successful implementation of service programs targeted to families in which a parent suffers from a mental illness.

Keywords: Mental Health Services, Nurses

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

I wish to disclose that I have NO financial interests or other relationship with the manufactures of commercial products, suppliers of commercial services or commercial supporters.