[Growing up with a parent with mental health difficulties: results of the nationally representative study Children in...

A mentally stressed family environment can pose a risk to the healthy development of infants and young children. It is unclear how widespread psychological distress currently is in the overall population of parents with young children and whether the proportion of parents with psychological distress has increased in recent years of multiple crises. Furthermore, it is unclear to what extent associations between the psychological distress of parents, their parenting skills, and early childhood development persist when a growing number of parents report psychological distress.

In a nationwide, representative survey, 258 pediatricians documented the development of 7818 infants and toddlers as part of a preventive medical checkup. The children's parents answered questions about their mental health (anxiety and depression) and their parenting skills. The 2022 prevalences were compared with the results of the previous study from 2015.

Taken together, around a fifth (21.5%) of all parents reported moderate or clinically significant psychological distress (2015: 15.7%); parents with psychological distress were significantly more likely to express doubts about their own parenting competencies than parents without psychological distress. Pediatricians documented indications of a regulatory disorder and developmental delay significantly more frequently in children whose parents reported clinically significant psychological distress.

The results illustrate the increasing relevance of psychological distress among parents with young children in recent years. The finding that parental psychological distress is associated with developmental abnormality in children once again highlights the need to provide families with targeted support from the outset.