[Parenthood and mental illness].

UNLABELLED: OBJECTIVE,

METHODS

To estimate the impact of various independent variables on "parenthood", "number of off-springs", "living together with off-springs" information from 438 patients was gathered.

RESULTS

193 patients were parents of 375 off-springs. "Living alone", "schizophrenia", "organic psychiatric syndrome" decreased, "being an immigrant", "older age", and "female gender" (as a trend) increased the chance of "parenthood". "Being an immigrant" and "cohabitating relationship" increased whereas "schizophrenia" decreased the number of off-springs. 184 children lived together with 103 patients. "Cohabitating relationship", "being an immigrant", "child-care support" and "affective disorder" increased, "addiction" decreased the chance of "living together with children". "Being an immigrant" and "affective disorder" increased the number of children living together with their mentally ill parents. In families with schizophrenic fathers who live together with their children, the age of the first and second child was rather low. In contrast the child-care services were used only by 10.7 %.

CONCLUSIONS

Our data show the relevance of parenthood and associated therapeutic issues.