[What do psychiatrists know about the children of their patients?]

Abstract

Objective: Psychiatry could be a good starting point for preventive work for children of mentally ill parents by detecting children who are potentially at risk and connecting affected families with preventive services. However, it is unclear how much attention clinical psychiatrists pay for children of their patients. Therefore, this study examines the knowledge of german psychiatrists about the children of their patients and their attitude towards the youth welfare and prevention system.

Methods: Seven psychiatric hospitals of one federal state in Germany participated in a questionnaire survey.

Results: The majority of the psychiatrists know whether their patients have children or not, but they can not answer differentiate questions of the children's life circumstances or name preventive programs for children and their families. Furthermore, psychiatrists potentially could forestall preventive programs because of a lack of knowledge about the youth welfare.

Conclusions: Psychiatrists need more information about the children of their patients and about the general possibilities of prevention as well as more knowledge of supportive offers of the youth welfare.