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Review
. 2024 Mar 19;21(3):367.
doi: 10.3390/ijerph21030367.

Healing Together: A Narrative Review on How Psychiatric Treatment for Parental Depression Impacts Children

Michelle Cross  1 , Yasmeen Abdul-Karim  1 , Amy Johnson  1 , Colleen Victor  1 , Andrew Rosenfeld  1
Affiliations
Review

Healing Together: A Narrative Review on How Psychiatric Treatment for Parental Depression Impacts Children

Michelle Cross et al. Int J Environ Res Public Health. .

Abstract

It is well known that parental depression is correlated to adverse child mental health outcomes; but what is the effect of treating parental depression on the child? This narrative review aims to explore this question, and how certain specific interventions designed to help depressed parents affect mental health outcomes in their children. The academic database APA PsychInfo was searched for articles that broadly included interventions for parents with depression as well as child wellbeing or outcomes as of October 2023. Additional searches were conducted in the academic database PubMed in December 2023 and January 2024. Forty-nine articles met the inclusion criteria and were examined closely for this review. The studies included were divided into the following categories: psychotherapy, psychopharmacology, parenting support, and paternal interventions. We discuss the implications of our review on clinical practice and recommend further research in this area.

Keywords: child mental health; child psychiatry; depression; family-based care; major depressive disorder; medication treatment; parent therapy; parenting skills training; psychopharmacology; psychotherapy; therapy.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

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