[Fatherhood and mental illness]

Contrary to current theoretical debates on father roll and collective father representations, only few empirical studies have so far been done on the topic of fatherhood of psychiatric patients. The study at hand investigates the paternity rate, the frequency by which fathers actually live together with their children and other aspects commonly associated with fatherhood, of a cohort consisting of men who had been under psychiatric treatment.

222-male patients who had been under psychiatric treatment in the first quarter of 2005 were recruited for a survey on variables relevant to paternity. In addition to a descriptive statistical analysis a subgroup classification of fatherhood-variables associated with other independent variables, i. e. primary diagnosis, severity of disease, migration background, relationship status and age was performed using the multivariate statistical methods of Exhaustive CHAID-analysis.

In total, of the 222 Patients we recruited for this study 74 (33,3 %) were fathers. Of these, 44 were fathers to an underage child. 31 of these men actually lived in the same household as their child. The Exhaustive CHAID analysis was able to display different associations between the independent variables and the varied dependent aspects of fatherhood. Here, the independent variables "relationship status", "primary diagnosis" and "migration background" showed to be important.

A paternity rate of approximately one third demonstrates the relevance of this subject matter. Specific options for treatment, support and therapy, which include the mothers of the patient's children and, where applicable, take their migrant background into consideration, need to be established.