Living with Mental Illness

Objective: The situation of patient's relatives is still not broadly studied in psychiatry. Their needs are often overlooked. Method: We developed a digital questionnaire concerning the patient's sociodemographic, disease-related, and family-related data and had the patient's therapist fill it out. The patients included (N = 1766) were persons hospitalized on a selected date. Results: One-third of patients had at least one relative with mental illness, prior treatment, or need for treatment. The main diagnoses in relatives were affective, substance use, and somatoform disorders, often in concordance with their index patient. Teenage patients had the most affected relatives. The therapists of the minors included were better informed about their familial situation, whereas the therapists of the 30-59-year-olds knew the least. Conclusions: The comparably lower rate of affected relatives in adults stems most likely from underassessment and needs further investigation.